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Liberation 



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Books by ISABEL OSTRANDER 

Annihilation 
Ashes to Ashes 
The Crimson Blotter 
Dust to Dust 
How Many Cards 
The Island of Intrigue 
Liberation 
McCarty, Incog. 

Suspense 

The Tattooed Arm 


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LIBERATION 


BY 

ISABEL OSTRANDER/ 

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NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY 
1924 




































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LIBERATION 


CHAPTER I 

MARY DECIDES 

F ROM the top of the wooded hill the drawing-room 
windows of Green Lodge looked down upon the 
broad sweep of the Hudson glistening in the late 
afternoon sun, which was nearing the rim of the majestic 
mountains just beyond. The girl stood gazing out 
through the windows, but she was not contemplating the 
river. Her clouded, slightly troubled eyes were fixed, al¬ 
beit absently, on a gloomy pile of brick buildings which, 
with its semi-circular entrance court and the wide recrea¬ 
tion ground to the right surrounded by high, grimly 
significant walls, reared itself halfway down the steep hill¬ 
side above the railroad tracks. 

Ever since the time when, in response to her persistent 
questioning as a little girl, she had been told that the men 
in gray whom she saw sometimes in the broad open space 
behind the walls had broken the law and were being pun¬ 
ished for it, Mary Greenough had felt no aversion to 
them but rather a warm sympathy and pity. They were 
wrongdoers, criminals, but to be shut away, to be de¬ 
prived of freedom for months and years, perhaps for all 
of life, seemed too terrible for her tender spirit to con¬ 
ceive. 


i 


4 


LIBERATION 


really, and as for father and mother, when they know 
you as I do they'll see how unjust they've been! It all 
happened so quickly—why, we’ve only known each other 
two months!” 

“It isn’t any use, dear!” He shook his head. “They’ve 
shown me that I’m unwelcome even as a friend; I don’t 
mean that they are discourteous, but no one could help 
seeing their aversion. There’s only one way, one thing to 
be done, and it must be done now. You must come away 
and marry me to-night!” 

He had turned to her again, but she shrank back a 
step or two and both hands crept unconsciously to her 
breast. 

“To-night! Oh, Wesley, I couldn’t!” 

“Why not? You love me, you trust me, you have 
promised to marry me some time-” 

His voice was pleading, but her eyes had darkened. 

“But not—not that way! Not an elopement! It’s so 
ungrateful to them, so underhanded and deceitful-!” 

“Is it any more deceitful than the way we’ve had to 
take to see each other?” King asked. “I know how un¬ 
pleasant the evasions and lies are to you. As for me I 
can’t endure them! No man could, with the woman he 
really loves! We can’t go on any longer this way, and 
there’s no reason why we should! You know as well as 
I do that they’ll never consent, Mary, but once you are 
my wife they love you too much not to forgive you. 
You’re of age, you know your own mind and heart and 
you’ve given those to me! You’ve promised!” 

“But not to run away!” Mary’s voice shook with dis¬ 
tress and she repeated: “I couldn’t, Wesley! We could 
never be happy starting out like that!” 

“Then you don’t care for me after all?” He spoke 




MARY DECIDES 


5 

slowly, with a note of pain in his voice. '‘You didn’t 
mean to marry me, you were just amusing yourself!” 

“You know that isn’t true!” she cried. “You know 
there’s never been any one else, that I’ve never flirted 
like other girls! I feel—why, since I’ve known you it’s 
been all like a dream! If we wait a little, just a few 
months . . .” 

“ ‘Months ?’ ” King caught up the word. “Do you 
think that I could wait months for you, dear ? In the end 
this question would face us still. If you love me enough 
to marry me, if you meant to keep your promise you’ll 
come with me to-night; if you don’t I shall go away— 
alone!” 

“Go away!” The tears came into her eyes and her lips 
trembled. “You mean—you won’t come back?” 

“Never! To hang about waiting, hoping for a glimpse 
of you, a chance to slip a note to you, a stolen half-hour? 
It’s got to end to-night! I love you, Mary, I want you!” 

His arms were about her once more and the girl sud¬ 
denly buried her face on his shoulder. 

“If I only knew what to do!” she sobbed. “It isn’t 
right, I feel that, and yet when you’re near me somehow 
I-!” 

“Listen, dearest!” he interrupted softly. “It will be 
quite simple! You needn’t speak to any of your people 
over the telephone; just leave a message with your uncle’s 
butler that you won’t be there for dinner; say you have 
a headache—anything—and you’re going to retire early. 
Then pack a small bag with just a few things you’ll need 
and I’ll come for you again with the car at nine. I know 
a minister, a fine old chap, only about fifteen miles from 
here, in a small, out-of-the-way parish that no one will 
think about until we let your people know. We can be 



6 


LIBERATION 


down in New York by midnight and in the morning on a 
liner for anywhere you say—Bermuda, Newfoundland, 
Europe-” 

Mary lifted her head. 

“It seems so strange!” she whispered. “It’s more like 
a dream than ever! I can’t realize that you’re saying this 
to me! To be married—to-night!” 

“I wouldn’t hurry you, dear, if there were any other 
hope of a future for us, but there isn’t. When we come 
back your people will receive you with open arms, and 
oh, Mary, I’ll be so good to you! I’ll make you so 
happy!” His voice thrilled. “You’ll never have a 
moment’s regret that you’ve kept your promise and given 
yourself to me! You will? You will marry me to¬ 
night?” 

For a moment she gazed searchingly into his eyes. 
Then her own dropped and the swift color came and went 
in her face. . . . She nodded and whispered, so low that 
he could scarcely catch her words: 

“Yes, Wesley! I’ll—I’ll marry you to-night!” 

“My dear!” His lips found hers as his arms tightened 
about her. “My wife, in just a few hours! I’ve longed 
so for this! From the first moment I saw you there at 
the country club, I knew it! I knew why I’d waited, why 
there never could be any other woman in the world for 
me! And then our first dance together—Mary, I meant 
to marry you, I swore it that night, if I had to carry you 
off, and now that’s just what I’m going to do! You’ll 
never know an hour’s sorrow or grief that I can keep 
from you! All my life I shall think only of your happi¬ 
ness !” 

He led her to the davenport, still with his arm about 
her, and drew her tenderly down beside him. 



MARY DECIDES 


7 


“I know! I’m sure of that, Wesley!” she murmured. 
“If only we didn’t have to deceive them! I want to talk 
to my mother on the ’phone just once more, just to hear 
her voice, but I know you’re right. If I did, I simply 
couldn’t go away like this, even with you! I’ll leave a 
little note in her room telling her where I’ve gone and 
why-” 

“You mustn’t! Think if they came home unexpectedly 
early, if they ’phoned the minister and stopped the 
marriage! I’ll never give you up, dear, never, if I have 
to fight for you now, and you wouldn’t want that! But 
your father has great influence here in this country and 
what if we had to drive on and on through the night to 
find another minister and missed our ship in the morning ? 
Our honeymoon would be spoiled before we started, you 
would be unhappy, frightened! You mustn’t think of it, 
Mary, but I’ll tell you what we’ll do.—When will the 
servants return? Not before nine, surely?” 

The eager anxiety of a lover rang in his tone and the 
girl responded: 

“Oh, no, not until the ten o’clock train. Then there’s 
always bridge at Uncle Henry’s after dinner, and mother 
and father never think of leaving before midnight. . . . 
It seems dreadful, doesn’t it, to be planning like this, and 
then when they reach home and find me gone. . . 

Her lips trembled anew, but King bent his head and 
kissed them. 

“They won’t worry long. When we reach New York 
I’ll send a wire to a friend of mine in Boston and he’ll 
relay it here, after the necessary time it would take us to 
get there in my car; then, when we’re safely at sea, you 
can send a radio and explain everything. You see, dear, 
I’ve thought it all out, I’ve planned it from the first, when 



8 


LIBERATION 


I realized your people felt prejudiced in some way against 
me. I even hunted up the old minister and he expects us 
this evening! It wasn't that I felt so sure you would 
marry me out of hand, but I was sure of your love and 
the promise you gave me!” 

“The minister expects us?” Mary passed her hand 
across her forehead in a dazed fashion. “And you will 
come for me at nine, Wesley?” 

The sun had set and the pink afterglow over the moun¬ 
tains across the river seemed to emphasize the creeping 
shadows in the room, but neither of them had realized 
it until King glanced about him. 

“Yes. By Jove, it's later than I thought! I'll have 
to step on the gas if I’m going to the Inn and pack and 
then get back here in time!” He rose and drew her up 
once more into his arms. “You really mean it? You’re 
not going to change your mind, Mary? When I come 
I’ll find you waiting?” 

“I’ve given you my word.” She smiled tremulously. 
“You’ll find me waiting, Wesley, when you come.” 

“And you love me?” His dark, handsome face was 
very near her own. “Say it, dear; I want to hear you 
say it! You’re sure you love me ?” 

“I’m—sure!” Her whisper was very low once more. 
“I—I do love you, Wesley!” 

King kissed her rapturously and turned to the door. 
She heard the outer one close and in another moment his 
car roared off down the drive, but the girl stood motion¬ 
less where he had left her, the color gradually ebbing 
from her face as the light died out of her soft eyes. The 
roar of the motor diminished to a droning hum that 
finally dwindled into silence and, as the shadows crept 
closer, Mary suddenly covered her face with her hands. 


CHAPTER II 


THE BELL 

T WILIGHT had deepened into dusk and about the 
high gray walls of the prison grayer shadows 
had fallen, softening the grim outlines of the 
huge building with its rows of windows, so closely set 
that they seemed like one solid expanse of glass. 

Dim lights were springing up here and there within it, 
serving only to accentuate its vast, foreboding gloom, and 
the silence of that home of living dead men, after the hum 
of the workshops had ceased, overhung it like a pall. 

The winding road that passed before the entrance 
court was deserted and, though lights gleamed among 
the trees from the cottages that dotted the steep hillside 
and the larger estates that crowned it, no one was for 
the moment visible, when all at once something appeared 
on the top of the prison wall, flattened for an instant and 
then dropped to the far side where it lay as motionless 
as a dead thing. 

As gray as the wall itself, gray as the deeper shadows 
into which it had fallen, it looked for that moment like a 
long, gaunt lizard and when, after a brief space, it darted 
with almost incredible swiftness across the road on its 
belly to lie again as still as before, the resemblance was 
intensified. And now a motor came laboring up the 
sharp incline of the road and as it passed its lights, un¬ 
noted by its occupants, touched for a mere flash the thing 
flattened in the ditch. 


9 


IO 


LIBERATION 


It was a man whose body, clad in gray, seemed in¬ 
credibly long because of its emaciation; his head was 
cropped so close as to appear bald and his face was 
hidden, for he had buried it deep in the dust at the first 
hint of alarm. Only the spasmodic movement of his 
back muscles as he breathed convulsively betrayed that 
life was still in him and for long minutes after the danger 
was past he lay there; then, worming his way swiftly 
and noiselessly out of the ditch on its farther side, he 
gained the shelter of some low growing shrubs and again 
halted. 

The cottages at this point were neither fenced nor 
hedged, their small gardens being separated only by 
mounting clusters of trees with dense undergrowth be¬ 
neath ; and toward the nearest of these after a period of 
breathless waiting the man crawled, stopping at every few 
paces to become rigidly still. 

The dusk was rapidly settling to darkness and when 
the man paused at last, well in the center of a patch of 
woodland, lights were' gleaming from every cottage, 
winking at him like accusing eyes through the dense 
foliage of the trees. The shades had not been drawn in 
the one on his left and, although he was not near enough 
to see distinctly, the man could yet distinguish a woman’s 
figure in a bright, bungalow apron, moving about a 
kitchen, and in the next room toward the front a man 
in his shirt sleeves was seated at a round table with three 
little heads gathered about him. 

The fugitive brushed his sleeve across his eyes and 
turned hastily toward the right as though the homely 
scene was more than he could endure. The little white 
house which next met his gaze was much closer and un¬ 
curtained, and he beheld a living-room, crude in its mis- 


THE BELL 


II 


sion furniture and red hangings. A young man was 
seated in awkward self-consciousness on a sofa and as the 
unseen watcher gazed hungrily a girl in a white dress 
crossed the room and sat down before a mechanical piano. 
The next moment the metallic, slightly wheezy notes of a 
hackneyed song came grindingly forth into the gathering 
darkness. 

The Rosary! For a space the man outside listened 
with straining ears, then began once more his creeping 
journey upward. At a narrow lane he halted, darted 
across and halted again as he had at the roadway below, 
but only for a minute; the first great danger was past 
but time was of the utmost importance now, for soon 
he would be missed and then the countryside would 
resound with the hideous warning which would turn 
every hand against him, make of every respectable 
householder a hunter in the grimmest chase in the world! 

The cottages were fewer now, larger and farther apart, 
and in many of them curtains of lace or silk obscured the 
interiors, but now and then the fugitive caught an in¬ 
timate scene; an elderly couple seated on either side of 
a reading lamp, the grizzled man half hidden behind a 
newspaper, the woman’s gray head bent over her knitting. 
In another a small boy wound his legs in an agony of 
concentration around his chair as he pored over a col¬ 
lection of schoolbooks, and in an upper window of the 
third house a young, fair-haired woman rocked monoto¬ 
nously back and forth with a soft white bundle in her 
arms. 

The thin body of the man lying in the underbrush 
quivered in every nerve and for a moment his head 
drooped to the rank grasses, but in the next he had started 
again on his toilsome way. 


12 


LIBERATION 


He had proceeded so for a hundred yards or more 
when a clothesline, hung with fluttering garments, met his 
eye and he wriggled to the edge of the trees, then darted 
desperately forward. He might encounter a watchdog, 
a hencoop, filled with startled inmates, a gardener, mak¬ 
ing his final rounds; any of the three would perhaps be 
fatal but he must take his chance! 

He reached the clothesline without discovery, however, 
and drawing himself cautiously to his feet he glided along 
it, clawing at the garments swinging from it with his 
gnarled, hot hands. Children’s tiny garments, women’s 
dresses and petticoats and aprons—God! if he could only 
come upon a pair of overalls, a shirt, a butcher’s apron, 
anything to conceal that betraying gray uniform of 
shame! 

He made his way to the end and started back along 
the second and last line, but there was no hope! He 
must go on as he was and trust to blind luck! 

Had there been eyes to see in the darkness they would 
have observed that a certain hardness had come into his 
blue-gray eyes, turning them to a glittering steel that 
boded violence, as he dropped prone and writhed toward 
the clump of trees he had left. Absorbed perhaps by the 
wild thought that had come to him, he seemingly failed 
to note the irregular mound which rose in his path till he 
had crawled into it and a tin can rattled down upon the 
level ground. 

Instinctively he lay motionless on the refuse pile until 
the clatter ceased and unbroken silence reigned again, 
but his nervously clutching fingers had closed about a 
hard, narrow cylinder that was chill to his touch and he 
warily drew its short length out from beneath the loose 
bundle of rags under which it had lain half buried. It 


THE BELL 


13 

was a piece of piping, left, presumably, from some recent 
plumbers’ job, and as he felt it and recognized it for 
what it was the hard light in his eyes became intensified 
and the deep lines stood out as his lean jaw tensed. Here 
was a weapon, at least, if the worse came to the worst! 
Clothing he must have in exchange for his present 
accursed garb; he would stop at nothing, rather than be 
taken back to that living hell! 

He proceeded more quickly now with fewer halts, for 
the houses were still more scattered and infrequent, and, 
avoiding the estates at the top of the hill, he skirted about 
it midway toward the south. In the almost forgotten 
days when he was a free man upon the earth he had 
motored up around the vicinity and he remembered 
dimly that somewhere about here there should be a 
narrow road, rough and little traveled then, but leading 
southward to the outskirts of Scarborough. If he could 
reach it before the dread clamor awoke the echoes among 
the hills there might be a chance! 

It was scarcely believable that he had not yet been 
missed, for it seemed hours since he had seized his 
sudden, unexpected opportunity and, secreting himself 
from the rest, had timed his drop over the wall, but there 
was still no hint of alarm, no sign of pursuit. The stars 
had not yet appeared, however, nor the first pale glimmer 
of the crescent moon; it must be early, early enough for 
some lone pedestrian or motorist to take that road if only 
he could find it! 

He began to encounter fences and low stone walls now, 
hedging in fields and meadows where cattle lay in clus¬ 
tered heaps and the stretches of woodland were larger 
but wider apart. Thankful for the darkness, he stooped 
low and ran from one patch to the next, keeping to the 


LIBERATION 


14 

shelter of the fence-lines and stopping only when a little, 
tinkling brook crossed his path. 

Here he drank deeply and dashed the cold water over 
his face and neck, then, refreshed in body, he plunged on¬ 
ward, but hope was dying within him. His memory had 
failed him or he had somehow lost his sense of direction; 
he might be traveling with every step farther and farther 
from that short cut between the villages and at any 
moment now the alarm would sound 1 Still, he must go 
on and on as he had begun; there could be no retracing 
the way. 

Then, with despair tugging at his pounding heart, he 
emerged from a thick patch of thorny briars that fringed 
a row of tall trees to find himself upon the very road for 
which he had been seeking! There could be no mistaking 
it, for though it wound deviously it led north and south, 
and there were the hills on one side and the rolling coun¬ 
try on the other, which he had vaguely recalled. Setting 
his face to the south, he took a few steps forward, when a 
sound came to his ears that brought him up standing and 
then made him turn quickly and dive back into the under¬ 
growth. It was the droning hum of a high-powered 
motor, coming toward the north! 

Whoever was in that car was in a terrific hurry, for he 
could tell by the approaching roar that the machine was 
traveling at a rate that defied all speed laws. How was 
he to halt it ? If only he could bar the road! He cast his 
eyes desperately about as the roaring of the motor in¬ 
creased and saw, breasting the ditch at the roadside, the 
long, tubular bulk of a great log. Its branches had long 
since been lopped away and the convict seized the nearer 
end, rolling it out and straight across the road with the 
strength of utter determination. 


THE BELL 


15 

Fortunately the wood was dry and pithy, the log light 
and smooth, and it had scarcely stopped in place and the 
fugitive taken cover once more when the glimmer of 
strong headlights appeared around a bend in the road, 
followed by the body of a touring car with the glitter of 
much nickel about it and a lone figure crouched behind 
the wheel. 

The latter emitted a low ejaculation of surprise and 
annoyance, put on his brakes and stopped with a jolt 
within a few feet of the barrier. Then a voice, low 
and tense, but with an unmistakable menace in it, spoke 
from the dense shadows beside the road. 

“Hands up!” 

“By God, a stick-up!” the driver exploded, but he lifted 
his hands nevertheless. “Take what I’ve got, damn you, 
and let me go on! Fm in a hurry!” 

“Get out and come over here!” was the terse command. 
“That’s right, but make it lively and no nonsense, for 
I’ve got you covered.—Keep your hands up, I say!” 

The driver obeyed with a muttered string of oaths, but 
as his captor advanced for an instant into the aura of the 
lamps’ glow he exclaimed: 

“A convict! Escaped, eh? You won’t go far, my 
man! I’ll have you hounded through every foot of the 
country for this!” 

“I’ve discounted that,” the fugitive retorted coolly, as 
he ran his left hand in expert fashion over the other’s 
clothing in search of a weapon, his own meanwhile still 
held threateningly aloft. He had led him deep into the 
briar patch close beneath a towering oak and now he 
added: “Strip!” 

“What-t?” demanded his amazed victim. Then he 
gave a short, ugly laugh. “Oh, I see! You want me to 


i6 


LIBERATION 


change clothes with you, do you? That won’t help you 
for long, for I’ll go straight to the warden in yours-” 

“No you won’t. I’ve another use for mine.” The lead 
pipe moved significantly. “Shall I take yours from a 
living man or a dead one? Personally, I don’t much 
care!” 

To this the driver of the car made no rejoinder but 
removed his clothing with discreet haste and when it lay 
in a heap before him the fugitive ordered: 

“Pick it up and hand it to me, even the shoes! That’s 
right, now stand still.” Slowly he backed away from his 
captive, the pipe still ready for a swinging blow, till he 
had reached the car. There in the road he dropped the 
clothing and with his hands thus freed switched off the 
lights and felt in the tool box on the running-board. 
When the man who stood shivering beneath the tree saw 
that he had dragged out the tow-rope he cried hoarsely : 

“My God, you’re not going to tie me up and leave me 
here! You haven’t seen my bill-fold yet, but there’s four 
thousand dollars in it, and I’ll write you a check that I 
swear’ll be honored!” 

“I’m not after your money!” the fugitive announced. 
“Back up against that tree and put your arms around it, 
behind you. Would you rather be left at the foot of it 
with a crushed skull? Now then, put your feet together 
*—together, I said! This tow-rope is good and long 
and you’ll look rather like a cocoon when I get through 
with you.” 

“Damn you!” the other cursed again through set teeth. 
“I’ll get you for this if it takes me the rest of my life! 
You’re going off with my car-” 

“Not I!” the convict interrupted with supreme con¬ 
tempt. “I’d rather take my chances on foot than in that 



THE BELL 


17 

flashy circus chariot of yours that could be spotted a mile 
off! When you’re free you can go on in it to start your 
search for me.—On second thoughts, though, I will take 
a little of your money, borrow it, I mean. I suppose your 
name is on the tailor’s tab inside your coat; I’ll find you 
and return it to you, together with the price of your outfit. 
You won’t believe me, of course, but that isn’t of any 
importance.—There you are!” 

While he talked he had shifted the pipe to his left 
hand and with the right skillfully made a running noose 
through which he slipped the other’s hands, then bring¬ 
ing the rope around the tree he had wound it about it’s 
wide girth and his captive together, till the latter was 
triced from head to foot. When he had made it fast he 
dropped his weapon, dashed out into the road for the 
clothing and, returning with it, made a lightninglike 
change in his attire. Completing it, he drew the bill-fold 
from its pocket, abstracted two bank notes and then thrust 
it behind its owner’s head where it pressed against the 
tree trunk. 

The sleeves and trouser-legs were absurdly short for 
him, but slight as was the former wearer of the garments, 
they fell about his emaciated frame in folds, although he 
was obliged to rip the sweatband from the cap before he 
could stretch it down upon his head. The narrow shoes, 
however, appeared to fit him and he looked a different 
man as he strode back once more to the car and searched 
again in the tool box, bringing out a length of fine but 
strong and flexible wire. With this and the waterproof 
lap-cover, which had been fastened with snappers to the 
dash, he made a neat, compact bundle of every vestige of 
his prison garments and approached the bound figure once 
more. 


LIBERATION 


18 

"I’m off now,” he said. “The prison bell will ring in 
a few minutes and there’ll be scores of guards and law- 
abiding citizens searching every yard of these hills. 
You’re sure to be released within the hour and if we 
ever meet again you will have your revenge.” 

The captive struggled vigorously but futilely and made 
no reply but a torrent of muttered oaths. He was still 
cursing when he realized that he was alone! In the soft 
glow of the twinkling stars, twinkling fitfully because 
of the clouds that scudded before them, he saw that the 
space upon which the convict had stood was vacant! 

How noiselessly the wretch had gone! Why hadn’t he 
watched, so that he might tell the prison guards when 
they came to hear his story? The rascal hadn’t taken all 
the money, only two bills from the inner side of the 
packet and they were merely centuries; he’d used good 
English, too, when he felt like it, and his voice, in spite of 
its huskiness, had shown evidences of breeding, almost— 
confound it!—almost like that of a gentleman.—Why 
didn’t that accursed prison bell ring? Were they asleep 
down there, the fellows who got tax-payers’ money to 
keep crooks locked up safely and prevent just such out¬ 
rages as this ? 

If he could only worm himself out of this damnable 
rope and get to the suitcase on the deck of his car! He’d 
drive down to the—no, not to the prison. He didn’t want 
even to see what the hole looked like, but he’d go straight 
to the nearest house that had a telephone. . . . 

Who could that convict have been and what was he 
in for? Some white-collar guy, of course, caught in 
embezzlement- 

Clang! . . . Clang! . . . Clang! There it was at 
last! The prison bell with its brassy resonance which 



THE BELL 


19 


could be heard for miles upon miles! Clang! . . . 
Clang! . . . How loud it was, with its almost human 
note of alarm, and menace, and doom! The guards were 
out now, it was arousing men from their beds, the hunt 
was on! 

Clang! . „ . Clang! But the man who awaited rescue 
had begun to shudder as though it had gotten upon his 
already shaken nerves, and his head drooped forward 
upon his breast as the alarm went forth into the night. 


CHAPTER III 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 

HEN Mary, left alone in that room with the 



creeping shadows, had lifted her face from her 


" * hands it was still with that dazed sense of un¬ 
reality of which she had spoken to Wesley King. It 
couldn’t be possible that she, Mary Greenough, was going 
to run away, that in a few hours she would be a wife! 
Had she been mad to agree to such a proposal ? To leave 
her people, her home, everything which had been dear 
and familiar since her earliest remembrance and go away 
with Wesley King, to spend the rest of her life with 


him? 


She loved him, of course; at least she thought she did, 
she was sure of it when he was with her but—why, she 
scarcely knew him! Rapidly she reviewed the events of 
the past two months; the meeting at the opening country 
club dance of the spring, of which he had spoken, when 
Mrs. Burroughs had carelessly introduced him as “Jack’s 
Wall Street friend,” and she had thought him quite the 
handsomest man she ever saw, with the nicest eyes and 
manner, and a marvelous dancer. Then came other meet¬ 
ings at the club and the homes of various acquaintances 
in the vicinity, and he had asked if he might call, if she 
would come out for a little run in his car. 

That had been the beginning of it; but did she really 
know very much more about him now? Not his family, 


20 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


21 


his business, for even her people had been forced to admit 
that he was distinctly eligible from a social and financial 
standpoint, but his nature, his character? 

Mary had had very little experience of life for her 
twenty-two years. Her family was conservative and as 
an only child she had been brought up in an almost mid- 
Victorian manner, her playmates and later her friends 
chosen for her as carefully as her books, with the result 
that when, in a modest fashion, she took her place among 
the debutantes of her year she was far too serious and 
shy to become popular, and she had no girlish intimacies 
nor the incipient romances which marked the younger 
set. 

Wesley King had been the first man to single her out 
for his attentions; and the fact that every other unattached 
girl in her circle had vainly tried to annex him had very 
naturally played no small part in Mary’s delight in this 
new, strangely fascinating companionship, although he 
had attracted her from the beginning. 

The disapproval of her father and mother and uncle 
had only served to fan the flame, for they could give no 
tangible reason. Her mother “simply didn’t like him.” 
Uncle Henry merely shook his head and said: “There’s 
something there, well,—he’s too confoundedly anxious to 
make a good impression. What’s behind it?” Her father 
came out flat-footedly with the mandate: “He’s not the 
fellow for Mary!” and let it go at that. 

Mary had been at first hurt and then indignant, but 
the habit of her lifetime had asserted itself and she 
accepted the fact of their disapprobation without further 
effort to combat it. This was after a certain ride in the 
bearcat roadster out through the blossoming countryside 
at twilight which had brought to her the thrill of her first 


22 


LIBERATION 


love-making; and she was dreamily content to drift along 
indefinitely in the rosy haze of romance, made all the 
more sweet by the need for secrecy. 

But this afternoon had brought it to its apex and, 
carried away on an intoxicating wave of emotionalism, 
she had acquiesced in Wesley’s plan. Was this really 
love, she wondered? Was it just because she would be 
hurting her people, wounding their trust in her, their 
pride, that she did not feel more confident and happy? 
She felt all at once that she would give worlds if she could 
take back her promise, make Wesley wait until he had 
gained their confidence, until she herself grew more 
accustomed to the thought of this great, overwhelming 
change which marriage would mean! But she had prom¬ 
ised, she had given her word, and now there was nothing 
except to go through with it to the end. 

With a tremulous little sigh she glanced once more 
from the window at the growing dusk then made her way 
to the telephone; that was the task which she dreaded most 
though she had known old William, Uncle Henry’s butler, 
since the days when he used to give her surreptitious 
bonbons from the sideboard. He was growing very deaf 
now; what if he couldn’t understand and called her 
mother! Could she summon courage enough to make her 
excuses, dissemble so that no suspicion would be aroused ? 
With leaden, dragging feet she went to the telephone in 
the library and called her uncle’s number in Bedford 
Hills. 

As she expected, old William replied, but fortunately he 
was able to take her message. She hung up the receiver 
with a little shrug of relief although her eyes were blind 
with tears; so much was over, the last and worst decep¬ 
tion! To-morrow, what would they think of her when 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


23 

her message came, these three who had loved her best in 
all the world ? 

Mechanically Mary made her way to the ice chest in 
the back pantry and, taking out some cold chicken, a salad 
and butter, she placed them on the corner of the dining¬ 
room table while she cut bread and made tea. 

But when all was ready she found that she could not 
eat and with a gesture of repugnance she rose, leaving 
the supper untouched. She must go to her room and pack 
her small week-end bag; it was the only one she had, for 
she had never been farther from home than to a rare 
house party at the home of some one of her mother’s 
friends, or a brief visit with Uncle Henry. How strange 
it seemed! 

She was halfway up the stairs when the resonant, 
clamorous peal of the prison bell burst throbbingly on 
the air to die away echoingly and swell again and again, 
warning the country round that a criminal had escaped! 
Mary clutched at the banisters and turned slowly, her 
heart beating like a trip hammer. Once before she had 
heard that sound within her recent memory, but it had 
aroused no terror in her mind, only a vast anxiety lest 
the poor, desperate creature be done to death in his effort 
to be free. Now she felt a rising tide of sympathy for 
the miserable man, no matter what his crime might have 
been. Surely he had suffered enough, since he was will¬ 
ing to brave death in order to regain his liberty! 

She found herself hoping, almost praying, that he 
would succeed. Taught to respect the law as she had 
been versed in the creed of her church, Mary had never 
questioned its majesty, but now her sympathies went out 
to this convict as they had never gone out before to his 
fellows in that great, gray house down the hill. 


24 


LIBERATION 


He might be the worst wretch on earth but she felt a 
sudden kinship with him; he had gone to possible freedom 
but she was going into bondage against her will, her every 
instinct! She knew it now, with the din of that horrible 
bell filling her ears. It was not the thought of her 
family’s disappointment in her and sorrow which was 
holding her back, but the unacknowledged feeling that it 
could not be love, real love, which had led her to make 
that rash promise! She had been blind, carried away by 

infatuation, by Wesley King’s tempestuous wooing- 

But the promise had been made! Slowly, with the great 
bell still tolling its warning, she mounted to her room 
and turned on the light. 

When twenty minutes later she descended the stairs she 
wore a soft, blue tailored suit and turban with a traveling 
cloak thrown over her arm, and carried the black bag 
with its square, gold initials. These she deposited on the 
hall table and then wandered aimlessly into the drawing¬ 
room once more. As she switched on the light there her 
eyes rested on the clock and with a little start she saw that 
it was a quarter to nine. How quickly the time had 
passed, all too quickly! Wesley was to come for her at 
nine, he would be here at any moment now! 

With a little shudder she glanced at the reflection of her 
colorless face in the mirror and then sank into a chair. 
The bell was still clanging at intervals, just as it would 
continue to sound into the night when she would be far 
beyond reach of its reverberation unless the escaped man 
should be recaptured or killed. Somehow there seemed 
to be a note of more personal warning in it too, a warning 
for her, against the irrevocable step she was about to take. 

An utter revulsion of feeling had come over her and 
she viewed the future before her with blank horror, but 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


25 

it never occurred to her to step back from the brink of the 
abyss upon which she stood. How insistent Wesley had 
been about her promise, how repeatedly he had reminded 
her that she had already promised to become his wife 
some time! Did he dream that she would break her 
word? It had been given and though the future held 
misery unimaginable now, she would keep it! 

Why had she ever listened to this man who was a 
stranger to her? What spell had he cast over her? He 
must never know, never guess, this new knowledge of her 
heart which had come too late; that much at least was due 
to him! The aversion of her family could only be prej¬ 
udice, he was good, the soul of honor and rectitude, and 
he loved her deeply; she must hide from him always the 
truth that he was not loved in return, for the mistake had 
been hers alone. 

Ten o’clock! Perhaps he had been detained, he might 
not come, after all! Her heart leaped at the thought, and 
the next moment it had turned to stone in her breast, for 
a quick, subdued pounding had come upon the front door! 
Mary’s knees trembled as she rose to respond to it and 
stood for an instant steadying herself. She should have 
been there waiting! It was strange that she had not 
heard the sound of his car on the drive and stranger still 
that he should knock in that loud, excited way instead of 
ringing the bell! 

Hurrying out into the hall, she opened the door and 
then started back in surprise, for an unknown man stood 
before her! In a lightning glance she took in his tall, 
wasted form in the oddly ill-fitting clothes which yet 
seemed somehow familiar, the rather fine but deep-set 
eyes burning in the pallid, emaciated face, the shaven head 
which appeared nevertheless to have a silvery touch at the 


26 LIBERATION 

temples. The next instant he held out trembling hands 
to her and cried: 

“For God’s sake, give me shelter! Hide me!” 

“Hide?” Mary retreated a step as the great bell clanged 
again in her very ears. 

“Do you hear that?” His voice broke. “It’s for me! 
They’re hunting me down like a wild beast! In mercy let 
me come in !” 

“You’re the man who has escaped!” There was a note 
of sternness in Mary’s steady tones. “You’re a prisoner! 
I warn you I’m not alone in this house! Why have you 
come to me to conceal you from the law ?” 

“I came here—I don’t know why, except that I’m 
spent! I’m gone!” His limbs wavered. “I can’t go any 
farther, but I swear they’ll never take me back! I’ll 
kill myself, here on your very doorstep! I’ve been a 
prisoner, yes, but I’m innocent! Look at me! Please 
look in my eyes and you’ll see I’m telling you the truth, 
before heaven!” 

There was something in the note of his desperate appeal 
that made Mary advance, and in his gaze she saw suffer¬ 
ing of soul as well as body, a spirit broken but not wholly 
crushed, and nothing, nothing of guilt! 

“You are innocent?” she asked solemnly. 

“As God above is my judge!” The breath came whis¬ 
tling from his exhausted lungs and sweat poured down his 
waxen face and still he made no effort to force his way 
past her, but he shuddered uncontrollably as the bell 
sounded again, and when its reverberation died away he 
gasped. “In pity, hide me! Give me a chance to get 
away and prove my innocence!” 

He was guiltless. He had suffered unspeakable torture 
for some other man’s crime and was staking his life now 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


27 

for freedom! Impulsively Mary motioned for him to 
come in and then shut the door. 

His eyes stared in half-incredulous wonder and his 
gaunt features worked. 

“You—you mean it? It isn’t a trick to send me back? 
May God—bless-” He broke down utterly in the ter¬ 

rible, dry sobs of a man in the last extremity and Mary 
exclaimed: 

“I do mean it! I’ll help you! I did not tell you the 
truth, for I am alone in the house. Wait!” 

Turning, with a sense of intrusion on this man’s agony, 
she ran to the dining-room and, pouring a glass of sherry 
from her father’s private stock, she placed it beside the 
supper she had previously arranged. Then, switching 
off the lights so that only the hall lamp gave a faint glow, 
she called: 

“Come!” 

The unexpected guest tottered over the threshold and 
approached the table as one in a dream. Mary held out 
the glass to him and then poured a cup of tea. 

“This is cold, but there’s no time to make more and the 
wine will give you strength.” Her clear, young tones 
were almost maternal in compassion. “Eat all you can 
but be quick! I must hide you. You haven’t any money 
to travel but my purse is in the hall-” 

“I have money!” He paused with food halfway to 
his lips and looked again wonderingly at her. “Why 
are you doing this—for me? Do you know what it 
means if they find me here and see that you’ve taken me 
in and helped me? You don’t even ask what they claim 
I’ve done!” 

“I don’t care!” Mary cried. “Please, please eat! It 
doesn’t matter why you were sent—where you were, 




28 LIBERATION 

you’ve suffered unjustly! You shall be free if I can 
arrange it!” 

“You did see! You did believe!” The man bowed his 
head for a minute as though in an effort at self-control 
and then fell desperately upon the food with a painfully 
visible attempt to conceal his ravenous hunger.” 

“I’ll give you my keys to the front door.” Mary was 
thinking rapidly. “I—I shan’t need them—soon. The 
servants will return about half-past eleven and my father 
and mother an hour later, but meantime I am expecting 
a guest and I am going—out with him. You follow me?” 

He nodded without speaking and she went on: 

“I’m going to hide you in the coat closet in the hall, 
and I’ll leave the key to the kitchen door in the lock so 
that if—if any searchers come you’ll have two ways 
out. I—I’m afraid that is all I can think of.” 

“It is wonderful, beyond any attempt to thank you!” 
He turned from the table. “I could not hope for such 
mercy when I came to your door. I was beaten, done for! 
I took a last, desperate chance, and I found your pity! 
I won’t say any more, I can’t! You were alone in the 
house, you heard that bell and knew that a prisoner was 
at large, and yet you were not afraid! I don’t under¬ 
stand !” 

“I wasn’t afraid,” Mary assented gently. “You looked 
only ill and in trouble, and I wanted to be your friend. 
But come now, please. The coat closet is just this 
way- Why, what?” 

She had led him back into the hall, but stopped as she 
saw, half hidden beneath the edge of a curtain, a sub¬ 
stantial package wrapped in some shiny black material 
and fastened with wire. 

“It’s mine,” her guest remarked. “A souvenir of my 



FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


29 

late experience. I’m taking it with me because I’m going 
to have a use for it some day. Do you mind its being 
here? It isn’t—dangerous!” 

“I didn’t think it was, and of course I don’t mind.” 
Mary smiled and then her face changed suddenly. “There 
is a car coming up the drive, I think! Take your pack¬ 
age and go in here quickly! Get well behind the coats, 
they’ll screen you. Good luck if—if I don’t see you 
again!” 

She held out her hand and for a moment the man hesi¬ 
tated. Then with a swift movement, unmistakable in its 
gratitude, he took it in his rough, thin one and carried it 
to his lips. The next moment he had seized the bundle 
and disappeared into the closet and Mary closed the door, 
leaving it slightly ajar that he might have air, and then 
moved to the front of the hall, for the car had come to 
a halt before the door. 

“Mary, darling!” King gathered her into his arms. 
“I am horribly late but I have had a shocking experience! 
The prison bell—there it goes again!—you know what it 
means ?” 

“Yes, that some one has gotten away.” She could 
hardly keep her elation from her voice. “Come into the 
drawing-room; we have an hour yet before the maids 
return.” 

“But the minister is waiting, dearest!” He followed 
her somewhat reluctantly. “What if your parents come 
back unexpectedly? I cannot feel free and sure of you 
till we are safely away from the house!” 

“Just—just for a minute!” Mary temporized. Would 
it be safe for his own sake to leave the hunted man where 
she had hidden him? What if in his exhausted condition 
he should fall asleep and be found by the maids or her 


30 


LIBERATION 


father? If only she dared tell Wesley and enlist his aid! 
The impulse came to her only to be cast aside, for, with 
his uncompromising sense of justice, he would insist upon 
turning the unfortunate man over to the prison authori¬ 
ties for further punishment. 

Her own predicament, this impending marriage, the 
very thought of which had all but overwhelmed her with 
consternation, was banished, lost in her fears for the 
safety of her guest. It was only sympathy, of course; 
he had been so weary, so desperate, he bore the marks of 
such torture that in all humanity she must have come to 
his aid, and perhaps in helping one fellow creature to free¬ 
dom she would be able the better to endure her own future 
captivity. 

She turned to look at the man beside her and found 
him gazing at her with a resentful, almost suspicious 
frown. 

“What is it? You are strange to-night, Mary!” he 
demanded. “You were to have gone away with me at 
nine o’clock to become my wife; I am nearly two hours 
late and you seem uninterested! I don’t believe you even 
missed me, or worried! I tell you I have had a horrible 
experience with this wretch of a convict-” 

“What!” she interrupted. “You—you met him?” 

“ ‘Met him’!” King repeated. “He held up my car, 
forced me under threat of death to give him my clothes, 
robbed me of my money and left me tied to a tree! He’s 
a desperate character, Mary, and the sooner he’s caught 
and put back behind bars again the better it will be for 
this community!” 

“I don’t-” Mary caught herself up before she ex¬ 

pressed her open disbelief. It could not be that the man 
whom she had befriended was a “desperate character,” 



FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


3 i 

a thief who would steal money! They had undoubtedly 
met and he had forced Wesley to give him his clothing, 
for she knew now why that ill-fitting suit had seemed 
familiar; she had often seen it on Wesley himself, but 
surely a man in his peril could be forgiven for taking any 
means short of actual murder to obtain other garments 
than those which would betray him to any eye as a 
fugitive! 

“You don't believe he’ll be caught?” King had misread 
her unfinished sentence. “I tell you, dear, if it hadn’t 
come just at this time, at the beginning of our lives to¬ 
gether, I should stay and bring every influence to bear 
to track him down! I shall never forget his insolence, 
the indignity—the danger, rather, to every law-abiding 
citizen while this vile criminal is at large!” 

“But how did you get away?” Mary asked. 

“I managed to unfasten the rope he had tied me with 
and fortunately he had overlooked my packed suitcase 
in the tonneau of the car. I dressed and rushed here to 
you.” He started nervously. “What was that?” 

“I didn’t hear anything,” Mary replied, but her face 
had whitened, for a sound had come from that closet in 
the hall, a slight scraping as if the hook of a coat-hanger 
had been pushed along the bar! 

“Come, my darling!” King seized her hands and drew 
her again into his arms, but the emotional fire of the 
afternoon had died within her and she could only submit 
passively to his kiss. “We can talk in the car and every 
minute adds to our risk. What’s the good of waiting?” 

What indeed ? Mary thought drearily. Her word was 
given, she was to be this man’s wife, though all her life 
she must regret it. 

“I’m ready, Wesley,” she said quietly, adding with a 


LIBERATION 


32 

smile: “So we are fugitives too, like that poor fellow from 
prison.” 

“Fugitives!” he repeated sharply. “What an idea! 
Do you mean to say you pity that ruffian after what I 
have told you?—But don’t let us quarrel about that 
scoundrel to-night, my darling! He isn’t worth a mo¬ 
ment’s thought. Your bag and cloak are here, aren’t 
they ?” 

He had led her to the hall once more and as he stepped 
to the table there came from the closet the sound of a 
muffled thud! Unmistakably a coat together with its 
hanger had fallen to the floor, and Mary halted, her pulse 
drumming in her ears as though she heard her own 
heartbeats, while King, after one quick glance at her, 
sprang to the closet and flung the door wide. 

“So it’s you!” He started back, his voice harsher than 
Mary had dreamed that it could ever be, and seized a 
heavy cane from the stand. “Come out of there! You’re 
going back where you came from!—Mary, go upstairs 
and lock yourself in your room. I’ll call you when this 
man has been taken away! It’s the escaped prisoner I 
told you about, but don’t be frightened; I’m here to pro¬ 
tect you!” 

“I don’t need any protection from him, Wesley.” 
Mary’s cheeks flamed anew but she went on steadily. 
“He is not going back to prison! He is going free!” 

The convict who had stepped slowly from his hiding- 
place opened his lips to speak, but thought better of it and 
stood with his eyes fixed on the girl’s face. 

“Mary, have you taken leave of your senses?” King 
demanded furiously. “You don’t seem surprised to find 
him here! Is it possible that you know this creature ?” 

She nodded with a little, slow smile. 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


33 


“Yes, Wesley. He is my guest.” 

“Your—do you mean you have taken him in, harbored 
him? You must be mad! But we’ll soon settle this!” 

He strode toward the library door but Mary barred his 
way. 

“What are you going to do?” Her tone was still quiet 
but there was a note in it that would have given him 
pause had he been less enraged. 

“Telephone to the warden to send his guards, that I 
have his escaped prisoner!” 

“You had better think twice, Wesley!” Mary ad¬ 
vanced a step toward him, her small head held high. “If 
you betray this man who has come to me for shelter I 
shall never marry you, I shall never even see you again!” 

King gazed at her for a minute and his dark face grew 
purple. 

“Good God, what is he to you ?” he cried. 

“An innocent man!” Mary’s voice rang out in sure 
confidence and even as the words echoed in her own ears 
she realized that they were the truth! She did believe 
in his innocence! Without any protestation from him, 
without even knowing the nature of the crime for which 
he had been sentenced, intuition had told her from the 
first moment of their meeting that he was guiltless of it! 
She gave a swift glance at the man who stood silently 
by and then dropped her eyes for his own shone with such 
a light as she had never seen before and he stood erect 
with his pitifully thin shoulders thrown back as though 
an intolerable burden had dropped from them. 

“Innocent!” King’s jaw dropped and he stared in 
stupefaction, but after a moment he recovered himself. 
“If he is, it is up to him to prove it before the court! He 
has been given a fair trial and convicted, no matter what 


34 


LIBERATION 


his crime, and the law must take its course! You don’t 
understand, Mary, your sympathies have gotten the best 
of you; that’s the eternal whine of every convict, that he 
was railroaded, that he didn’t commit the crime for which 
he was sent away! You are overexcited now, dear, but 
justice must be done and I must protect you even against 
your kind heart. Let me pass.” 

“Are you quite sure that it isn’t a more personal 
grudge, instead of abstract justice that makes you de¬ 
termined to do this ?” Mary stared straight into his eyes 
and his flush deepened. “Are you sure it isn’t because 
of that little scene on the road? I don’t want to think 
you are so petty, that you would take so mean and un¬ 
fair a revenge, but you’ll force me to believe it if you call 
the authorities, and I promised to marry a man, not a 
coward!” 

“Mary! You can’t mean it!” He put a world of 
pleading into his tone. “You couldn’t think I had such 
a motive! The law has judged this man guilty; let 
him go back and serve the rest of his sentence and leave 
it to his lawyers, his friends, to prove his innocence, if 
he is innocent. You are breaking the law yourself in 
aiding his escape!” 

“So he told me!” Mary smiled once more. A sudden 
inspiration had come to her and with it a tiny spot of 
color flamed again in her cheeks. “I’m going to break 
it some more, Wesley, and you’re going to break it with 
me!” 

“I!” Shocked amazement sounded in the monosyllable. 

“If I run away and marry you to-night, this man goes 
with us, at least far enough to give him a fair chance.” 

“No!” The convict spoke for the first time. “I won’t 
trouble you further! I won’t bring this added risk upon 


FREEDOM OR BONDAGE? 


35 

you, for the whole countryside will be up in arms and 
every car stopped, but whatever happens to me I shall 
never forget your trust in me!” 

He seemed to have forgotten the presence of King, but 
the other sprang forward. 

“Mary, stand aside! I am going to call up the prison 
and to-morrow, when you come to your senses, you will 
thank me!” 

“There will be no to-morrow if you do!” Her gentle 
eyes flashed. “You said that I should marry you to-night 
or never, and I promised on that condition! We go now 
and this man goes with us, or I shall never see you 
again!” 

King read her irrevocable decision in her face and after 
a moment's hesitation he shrugged. 

“You are asking me to commit a crime, Mary, but if 
it is your wish I agree. We have wasted too much time 
already. Let us go!” 

“You shall not take this chance!” the convict inter¬ 
posed again. “I will go, I will slip away alone-” 

“I have invited a guest to my wedding!” Mary's lips 
trembled but her tone was gallantly gay. “Is he going 
to be so horrid as to refuse?” 

The convict bowed. 

“I am at your service.” 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 

K ING had already stalked out to the car and, turn¬ 
ing off the lights, Mary motioned to the con¬ 
vict to follow. Her lover had opened the ton¬ 
neau door for the unwelcome guest and stood by the 
forward one to assist Mary in, but she entered the ton¬ 
neau after the fugitive and shut the door firmly. 

“Mary!” King protested in affront. “Do you mean 
you’re going to ride with this—this fellow?” 

He choked and she replied calmly: 

“Of course. You can see the necessity for yourself, 
Wesley; look at the lights moving all along the road out 
there! This man must seem to be our guest and he could 
hardly be left to ride alone back here.” 

“But this is insufferable!” King sputtered. “Do you 
think I’m going to act as a mere chauffeur on the way to 
our marriage? Let him take his chances! I’m doing 
more than enough as it is! You’ll ride with me!” 

“When we are out of danger perhaps,” Mary returned 
with a note of finality, then, as the man beside her made 
a movement of protest, she added: “We’ll be seen if we 
remain here any longer. Unless I sit here I shall not go 
at all. You must choose.” 

Boiling with wrath but unable from sheer prudence to 
give further vent to it, King sprang in, hunching low over 
the wheel, and the strange elopement began. 

They had scarcely left the grounds of the Lodge when 
36 


THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 


37 

the lights flashed close beside them and a peremptory 
voice bade them halt. It was only a neighbor, however, 
in volunteer service, and as he knew both Mary and King 
he scarcely glanced at the third occupant of the car. 

Again and again they were stopped but fortunately not 
by a guard from the prison, and on more than one occa¬ 
sion Mary introduced the fugitive as a friend and house- 
guest of her father. The bell was still sounding its 
ominous alarm, but gradually it grew fainter and fainter 
in the distance and they were held up with less and less 
frequency. At last, after the clanging strokes had all 
but died away and they had gone more than a mile with¬ 
out challenge, Mary turned with a little smile: 

“It seems as though the worst were over, doesn’t it?” 

“Yes, and I can’t thank you!” the convict responded 
in tones that broke a little. “If you will ask your friend 
to slow up a trifle I’ll leave you here.” 

“Indeed you won’t!” she exclaimed. “Alone and on 
foot you wouldn’t stand a chance anywhere within a 
hundred miles from here and you know it! They must 
be out with cars scouring the roads.” 

King had emitted an exclamation under his breath at 
her “hundred miles,” but only the girl heard and she chose 
to ignore it. The man at her side began: 

“But if we should meet a car from the prison-” 

“Then we’ll brave it out somehow,” Mary interrupted 
with serene assurance. “I don’t believe we’ll meet any, 
though; they probably think you’re keeping to the back 
roads and they wouldn’t expect to find you on the highway 
with another man and a girl in a touring car! Of course 
they may suspect that this was prearranged by your 
friends-” 

“No.” He paused and then added quietly without a 




38 LIBERATION 

touch of bitterness: “Fve never had a visitor; I have no 
friends/' 

Mary glanced at him in swift compassion and they 
drove on for a space in silence. Unconsciously she found 
herself comparing this stranger with the man she was so 
soon to marry. There was something so innately fine 
about him, his simple dignity under unmerited suffering 
and disgrace, his desire to save her from every risk even 
at the expense of his liberty—his life itself, for she knew 
he had spoken truly when he swore he would kill himself 
rather than be taken back—his gentleness even in the mo¬ 
ment of his desperate appeal 1 

And Wesley King? It was jealousy, of course, and 
indignation at the man who had bested him in that first 
encounter, but he had proved himself without mercy, 
brutal, truculent, weakly domineering! She shuddered. 
What was the future to be like with such a nature always 
seeking to rule hers ? Thank God at least that she did not 
love him, for she was spared the added suffering of this 
disillusionment! If only he had been more like— 
like. . . . 

Even as the thought came to her and she forced it from 
her in horrified amazement King turned his head. 

“Mary, will you lean forward? I want to speak to 
you." She obeyed mutely and he went on: “Dear, don't 
misjudge me! A woman can't understand how neces¬ 
sary it is for all of us to obey the law and there must 
be punishment for breaking it. I have nothing against 
this fellow, God knows, for holding me up; I might have 
done the same thing in his place, but I felt that in strict 
justice he should be returned. Please try to understand 
and don't let us start out with a shadow between us!" 

“There isn’t any, Wesley," she responded quickly. 


THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 


39 


“Before you came and told me of your encounter with 
him I thought of letting you know he was there and ask¬ 
ing you to help him, but I was afraid you would think it 
your duty to send him back. I couldn’t go away with 
you and hope for any happiness knowing we had delivered 
him over to such misery.” 

“Darling!” For an instant his hand left the wheel and 
reached back to close again over hers with a tender 
pressure. “I love to know that you are so sweet and 
merciful! We’ll take him almost as far as the minis¬ 
ter’s-” 

“But that’s only fifteen miles!” Mary expostulated. 
“We must take him much farther than that! We are 
going to New York, you said? You can take a round¬ 
about way, can’t you, that will give us a wide detour out 
into Connecticut far away from the prison?” 

“But, Mary, our ship!” King protested. “If we are 
late-” 

“There are other ships,” she remarked with a shade 
of coolness. “This man’s liberty is at stake.” 

“Oh, of course!” he spoke hastily. “But we can’t take 
him into the parsonage!” 

“No, for his own sake, although I invited him,” Mary 
agreed. “He will have to wait out in the car for us. Is 
it much farther?” 

She felt a desperate eagerness to have it over, to take 
the step to which her word had bound her. It seemed 
that a measure of peace would come to her then, although 
there could be no turning back in any event. 

“Only about ten miles now,” King replied to her ques¬ 
tion. “It’s out of the way, as I told you. The parsonage 
is very old and the village has gradually grown away 
from it and stretched out in big farms. I don’t believe 



40 


LIBERATION 


there’s an occupied house within a mile of it, but the 
congregation come back for services just the same. Dr. 
Peasley’s a very kind, simple old man; you’ll like him, 
Mary.” 

“Yes,” she acquiesced without enthusiasm and leaned 
back once more as a little silence fell between them. 
What did it matter who pronounced the words that were 
to unite her for life to Wesley? The ceremony had 
lost all meaning as a sacrament to Mary. It was merely 
an incident in this chain of events which had so changed 
her life. She would do her best to keep the promises she 
must make within the hour, but she could never love the 
man who was to be her husband; the conviction came 
home to her with renewed force, even though love itself 
was still a mystery to her. 

A car or two passed them but there were no more chal¬ 
lenges, although once or twice lights were turned sharply 
upon them, and at length they left the high road for a 
narrower, deeply rutted one that wound between the long 
fence-lines of wide farms. Then came a sleepy, little 
hamlet, more farms, and at last King drew up before a 
tiny, vine-covered cottage beside a venerable church. 
Two lights were visible in the parsonage, a low one from 
an upper window and a brighter one in the room directly 
beneath, which revealed itself through the muslin cur¬ 
tain as a sort of parlor, with only a few pieces of heavy, 
old furniture to relieve its pathetic bareness. 

“You’ll wait out here for us?” Mary asked quickly of 
the convict, adding: “It will be safer for you, and you 
can see through the window and so be our guest after 
all, only I want you to promise you won’t slip away unless 
some of the searchers come.” 

“I’ll promise.” A faint, weary smile lighted his worn 


THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 


4i 

features for a moment. “May a poor devil who is very 
grateful wish you every happiness?” 

Her hand clasped his for a moment and then she turned 
and permitted King to assist her down, but as he did so 
the parsonage door opened sending out a broad shaft of 
light in which a stoop-shouldered, benign old man ap¬ 
peared, rubbing his hands together in greeting. 

“My dear young people! I have been waiting for 
you l” He spoke with fatherly urbanity in slightly 
unctuous pulpit tones. “Come in, you are most welcome. 
Ah! I see you have brought a friend with you! How 
fortunate!” 

“Fortunate, Dr. Peasley?” King turned sharply. 
“Why?” 

The minister coughed. 

“You see, my dear Mr. King,” he began half apologeti¬ 
cally, “two witnesses are required and my wife, poor 
soul, has been visited with a sudden attack of rheumatism. 
She cannot leave her bed, we have but one servant and 
there are no near neighbors, even if I could awaken them 
on such an errand at this hour. But it is all right now. 
Step this way, please.” 

“Never!” King muttered in an aside to Mary. “That 
man a witness at our marriage? Impossible!” 

“What else is there to be done?” she asked patiently. 
“You said yourself that we could not drive on all night 
looking for some one else to marry us, and how can I 
go home now? What explanation could I make for my 
absence? I have burned my bridges.” 

King looked at her for a moment then shrugged and 
strode over to the man seated motionless in the car. 

“You heard what the minister said?” he queried 
brusquely. “I am forced to ask you if you’ll be a witness 
to our marriage.” 


42 


LIBERATION 


“Does the young lady wish it?” the convict asked. 

“Of course!” King returned impatiently. “We can’t 
get hold of any one else at this hour!” 

Without reply the fugitive descended from the car and 
the three entered the little parlor. 

The brief interval that followed was forever after like 
a dream to Mary. She remembered the stout, smiling 
country woman who came downstairs at the minister’s 
call, the vivid colors of the old-fashioned garden flowers 
set about in bowls and pitchers in a kindly attempt to 
lend an air of festivity to this hurried, secret marriage, 
and then the ceremony began. 

She murmured her responses mechanically, only sub¬ 
consciously attentive, for in her heart was a prayer of her 
own, that she might be granted strength to perform the 
task she conceived to be her duty and be forgiven the con¬ 
ventional lies which were falling from her lips. 

“I take thee, Wesley King”—she repeated the words 
in a dull, hopeless monotone—“from this day forward, 
for better for worse . . . and to obey till death do us 
part. . . .” 

The ring slipped upon her finger seemed like a riveted 
chain, chilling her to her very heart, the brief prayers 
which followed held little meaning and in an appallingly 
short space it was over! She was Wesley King’s wife! 

Dazedly she received the congratulations offered her 
by the minister and his housekeeper, but the convict did 
not join them and it seemed to her that he looked at her 
with a strange startled question in his eyes. She roused 
herself, however, when Dr. Peasley produced a paper 
and came toward the table by which she stood with ink 
and a pen in his hands. 

The stout, smiling housekeeper signed her name with 


THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 


43 

laborious care and then the minister turned to the con¬ 
vict. 

“You will sign here as witness, please.” His unctuous, 
urbane tones came to her with the shock of a blow. She 
had brought this upon him! He must sign! Involun¬ 
tarily she took a step forward but stopped, realizing the 
hopelessness of the situation, and the witness calmly ac¬ 
cepted the pen and wrote in a steady hand: “George 
Lorrin.” 

Wesley King, her husband, was standing just behind 
his chair and as he made a sudden movement Mary 
looked up. He was staring down at the man before him 
as though seeing him for the first time and she realized 
that although the name meant nothing to her, it held sig¬ 
nificance for him. He must know who the man was and 
what the crime of which he had been convicted, but she 
would never ask, for he himself had not volunteered his 
confidence. They would take him to safety and she 
would see that help reached him from time to time, but 
that would be the end. 

The housekeeper produced a jug of homemade dande¬ 
lion wine that was pungent and bitter, the minister re¬ 
ceived a fee which made his heavy face beam and after 
farewells were said they were in the car again. Nothing 
was said until they had proceeded past the village and 
turned into a new road toward the east. Then Wesley 
motioned for Mary to bend toward him once more and 
whispered: 

“My wife! If you knew what that word means to me! 
If only we could be by ourselves without this criminal!” 

“Don’t, Wesley!” she said gently. “Don’t spoil our 
very first hour with uncharitableness. We—we have all 
our lives before us, haven’t we?” 


44 


LIBERATION 


There was wistful pathos in her tone but her husband 
did not notice it. He pressed her hand rapturously. 

"I’m going to make you so happy, dear!” His hot 
breath touched her cheek. “ 'All our lives’! That won’t 
be half long enough for me to tell you how I love you!” 

"And I—I will try hard to keep every promise I made 
just now, Wesley,” Mary said solemnly. "I will try to 
be a good wife!” 

They drove on in silence for a time and then she turned 
to their passenger. 

"I’m dreadfully sorry—about your being compelled to 
sign your name, I mean. I never thought of it when I 
wanted you to be a witness for us! It may bring trouble 
to you.” 

"It doesn’t matter,” he responded. "I was only too 
glad, too honored!” 

"But it does matter!” Mary insisted. "We’ll take 
you much farther because of it, of course, and in quite 
an opposite direction. We’re making a detour now out 
into Connecticut. Were—were you intending to go 
south ?” 

"To New York,” he replied promptly. "I shall be glad 
to get out anywhere in Connecticut and make my way 
from there.” 

Mary reflected for a moment. 

"We’re going to New York, too, and we could easily 
take you all the way, but it wouldn’t be best. If the people 
who are looking for you get in touch with Dr. Peasley 
they’ll know you’re with us and we’ll be trailed. We’ll 
let you off near some station, though.” 

She heard a faint sound from her husband and turned 
to him, but he was staring straight ahead and she was 
conscious that the speed of the car had increased. They 


THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 


45 

were in rising hills once more and the farms were smaller, 
the villages farther apart than in the Hudson valley. The 
moon had long since risen, but the clouds of early evening 
had thickened, so that only occasionally was its light vis¬ 
ible, and the freshening wind betokened coming rain. 
Mary leaned back in her seat, pulling her coat closer about 
her and felt surreptitiously of the plain platinum ring 
beneath her glove. It would be there for the rest of her 
life, sign and symbol of her bondage! “Till death do us 
part” rang in her ears, as had the prison bell. She be¬ 
longed to the man in front of her irrevocably, forever! 
She was his, to do with as he willed! A desolation and 
loneliness such as she had never known swept over her, 
much as the convict must have felt when first the door of 
his cell clanged shut. She had changed places with him in 
the space of a few short hours, for he was free and she 
had started to serve her sentence, albeit hers was self-im¬ 
posed. His incarceration was behind him, but she was a 
“lifer” and there was no hope! 

All at once she realized that the car was slowing, stop¬ 
ping, and the moon, peering out from behind a fast driven 
cloud, showed her stretches of woodland on either side 
with not a house in view. 

King bent forward and spoke to the man on the other 
side of her. 

“Better get out here,” he said briefly. “We’ve taken 
you as far as we’re going on this road.” 

The convict inclined his head without a word and 
started to descend, but Mary’s hand on his arm stayed 
him. 

“Why, Wesley!” she exclaimed. “We can’t be nearly 
to the Connecticut border yet!” 

“We’re near enough!” His voice was suddenly thick. 


LIBERATION 


46 

“I’m not going to stand any more of this nonsense! 
There’s a storm coming and we’ve no top-” 

“What does that matter ?” she cried indignantly. “You 
would leave this man here in this wilderness and still dan¬ 
gerously near the prison after what he has done for us, 
practically betraying himself to Dr. Peasley? You know 
the authorities will telephone to him as they will to all 
outlying places beyond sound of the bell 1 He did it that 
we might be married, and now you would desert him!” 

“Please!” the convict interposed. “I would rather leave 
you here, really! You have been far too good to me!” 

“You shall not!” Mary turned again to her husband. 
“The hunt will start all over again at the parsonage door 
when the news reaches the authorities—■—” 

“Let it!” King retorted. “You’re my wife! My wife, 
do you understand what that means? I’m master now 
and this crook gets out!” 

Again the convict made a move and again Mary 
stopped him. 

“I have a husband, not a master!” Her tone was dan¬ 
gerously calm. “You make me ashamed already that I 
have married you! If you do not drive on I shall tele¬ 
phone to my people at the first opportunity to come and 
take me away from you! Perhaps they were wiser than I, 
perhaps they saw more clearly, when they forbade my 
marriage to you!” 

“Mary!” he protested. “This man has caused trouble 
enough between us already and when your people know 
who he is, and that you aided him-” 

The convict started slightly but remained silent and it 
was Mary who retorted: 

“Perhaps they would prefer him as a guest to you!” 

“Do you know what you are saying?” King stared 




THE MARRIAGE WITNESS 


4 7 

and then burst out in ungovernable rage: “To hell with 
your people! I didn’t marry them, I married you! You 
had the upper hand awhile ago, but I’m running things 
from now on, do you hear? You’ll obey me once and for 
all! I broke the law in abetting a prisoner’s escape but 
I’m damned if I’m going to be saddled with him any 
longer.—Beat it now, you, and be thankful I don’t do 
some telephoning myself when we stop!” 

“I shall never obey you when you are in the wrong!” 
Mary said quietly. “You have insulted me by your 
curses. If you do not drive on to where this man will be 
safe I shall get out with him and place myself under his 
protection, to take me where he is going and send for my 
people. Which shall it be?” 

King opened his lips to retort, but whatever he meant 
to say he checked it. With a muttered oath he jammed 
his foot on the starter, jerked the speed lever viciously 
and, as the moon darted under a cloud once more, they 
started off. 

Shuddering from head to foot and with waves as of 
nausea sweeping over her, Mary sank back in her seat. 
Wesley King had showed himself in his true colors at 
last! The mask, which he had worn during his brief 
courtship and which had slipped for a minute or two 
when he discovered the hunted man in her home, was off 
now and she realized fully into what depths her infatua¬ 
tion had led her. 

He was a brute, a beast! His courtliness, his high sense 
of rectitude and justice itself had been the merest veneer! 
He was a despicable creature of whom she must always 
be ashamed, with whom companionship would be impos¬ 
sible—and she was his wife, destined to go on with him 
to the end! 


CHAPTER V 


OPENED EYES 

O N and on the car fled through the night, its oc¬ 
cupants silent. King, cowed and sullen, never¬ 
theless gave strict attention to the road, evidently 
convinced at last that the quickest way to be rid of his 
unwelcome passenger was to accede to his wife’s wishes 
and take him out of the danger zone. Mary herself was 
overwhelmed with the desolation she had made of her. 
own life, and the convict, whose cause she had cham¬ 
pioned, spoke no word, but she was conscious of his eyes 
fixed upon her now and then in sympathy that seemed to 
be mingled with puzzled wonder. 

The moon and stars had disappeared, the wind blew 
with increasing force and presently the rain came, softly 
at first then driving in slanting lines that would have 
drenched Mary but for her thick coat. The convict was 
still wearing King’s ulster, but now he divested himself 
of it and held it out silently. 

“Keep it!” King growled. “Think I’d put it on again ?” 
The other man was silent under the insult but turned 
mutely to Mary and, although she would much have pre¬ 
ferred seeing his thin shoulders clad in it again, she 
smiled tactfully. 

“Thank you. I shall be very glad to wrap it about 
me. 

She spread it over her knees and King brought the car 
to a halt to take a rain coat for himself from his suit¬ 
case. Then he started the car once more and under 
48 


OPENED EYES 49 

cover of the humming of the engine he looked back to say 
low: 

“I am miserable, Mary! I don’t know how to ask you 
to forgive me! I never insulted a woman in my life be¬ 
fore, and to think that it had to be you, my wife of only 
an hour!” 

“It doesn’t matter, Wesley,” she replied wearily. 
“Don’t let us talk about it.” 

“But I must!” he urged. All the charm of voice and 
manner had returned, but Mary had seen beneath the sur¬ 
face and she was unmoved. He went on: “I want you 
to try to understand, dear, and then perhaps you will 
forgive. I’ve been under such a strain for weeks, in 
such suspense about you and fear that you might not love 
me enough after all to marry me in the face of your 
family’s unreasonable opposition, I was so wild with ex¬ 
citement and joy this afternoon—no, yesterday, for it is 
long past midnight, isn’t it?—and then to have our mar¬ 
riage and the start of our honeymoon spoiled by this— 
this unfortunate man! I was almost beside myself, I 
didn’t know what I was saying! You may blame me for 
hating him but it’s only human! I wanted you all to 
myself, I felt that I couldn’t endure his presence a moment 
longer! Can you understand and try to forgive?” 

“I think so, Wesley.” Mary smiled faintly when she 
had heard him through. The man beside her had turned 
his head away and was staring out into the darkness. “I 
must try to learn to—understand a great many things, 
and we will have to be patient with each other.” 

“You are the dearest, most patient little woman alive!” 
he whispered, and, taking her hand, he pressed his lips to 
it. “I’ve been a rotter about this whole thing, Mary, but 
oh! I love you so!” 


LIBERATION 


50 

He did loye her, she told herself consolingly and a 
tiny ray of hope came to her crushed spirit. If only he 
hadn’t! If only it had been just an infatuation and he 
had tired and gone away! But he did really care, and 
she had often heard that a woman could do much with a 
man who loved her; perhaps if she were very patient he 
would grow more kind and generous in his impulses, 
more like the man she had dreamed he was. She must 
make the best of her bargain and there would be no time 
for self-pity; at least he loved her! 

“Where are we going?” she asked at last. 

“I thought of Bridgeport.” King spoke almost eagerly. 
“We’ll be there in an hour or so and he can travel by boat 
or train in any of half a dozen different directions. It’s 
a manufacturing town to a great extent, you know, and 
a stranger wouldn’t be noticed. We’ll wish him luck and 
drive straight to New York ourselves. I hope you won’t 
be tired out, dear.” 

“I’m not at all tired,” Mary disclaimed. “Shall you 
drive straight into the town ?” 

“No. There’s a tract of woods I know of, only a mile 
or so out, and I thought we’d stop there,” he added. “No 
use drawing attention to ourselves as well as him.” 

“Very well, Wesley.” Mary turned to the convict. 
“We are going to Bridgeport. Do you know it ?” 

“Yes. I’ve been there,” he replied quietly. “It will be 
taking you far out of your way-” 

“Oh, no! You can get a boat or train from there to 
many different places, my—my husband says.” She fal¬ 
tered over the word which she had used for the first 
time. “We’ll stop about a mile out to avoid attracting 
attention, if you are not too exhausted.” 

“I could make it if it were twenty miles!” he ex- 



OPENED EYES 51 

claimed. “The food, the rest, your wonderful kind¬ 
ness-” 

He broke off and turned his head abruptly away once 
more and Mary leaned back and closed her eyes. She 
was all but spent with the varied excitements and emo¬ 
tions of the day and night, and her heart ached at the 
thought of the frantic alarm which must prevail at home. 
As soon as they reached New York a wire must be sent 
to her father and mother, and another to Uncle Henry, 
and by this time to-morrow night she and Wesley would 
be far out at sea. She didn’t know where they were go¬ 
ing and it didn’t much matter as long as they would be 
among strangers till she had had time to adjust herself 
to the new conditions of her life. 

She was more nearly worn out than she realized, and 
the rhythmic hum of the engine and swaying motion of 
the car over the smooth road lulled her at last to drowsi¬ 
ness. She drifted off to sleep and it was only when the 
convict made a sudden movement beside her that Mary 
awakened to discover that the rain had ceased, there was 
a new tang of salt in the air and the car was stopping. 
Ahead of them a wide area sprinkled with lights showed 
down the straight road and King switched on the dash 
light and turned to her. 

“Awake, Mary? That’s Bridgeport, right in front 
of us.” 

“Is it? You are sure everything will be all right?” 

“I can’t think of anything better.” There was a touch 
of stiffness in his tone and he lifted the coat from her 
knees and held it out to the other man. “Here, take this. 
I suppose you can make your way from here?” 

“Thanks, I shan’t need it,” the convict replied cour¬ 
teously but rather dryly. “I don’t suppose you will ac- 



LIBERATION 


52 

cept my assurance now, any more than you did earlier, 
that the equivalent of all that I have borrowed from you 
will be returned. It didn’t matter then, but it does, now. 
My apologies to the car; it isn’t a circus chariot. I shall 
be in eternal debt to it and its owners.” 

King noted the plural and grunted, but he was careful 
to hold himself in control. 

“That’s all right,” he said indifferently. “If you take 
this road straight through it will bring you out down by 
the docks.” 

The convict had descended from the car and Mary 
cried impulsively: 

“But you’re not going to leave us like this! You—you 
trust me don’t you, Mr. Lorrin? It would be silly to 
pretend that I didn’t see the name you signed!” 

The man started and after a pause replied in a low, 
moved tone: 

“Indeed I trust you, Mrs. King, you have done more 
for me even than you think! And thank you for calling 
me that, it—it is a long time since I have heard it!” 

“Then will you give me an address which will reach 
you?” she asked. Her husband’s body grew suddenly 
tense before her and she heard the sharp breath which 
he drew but ignored it. “I have a pencil in my bag and 
an old envelope; will you write it down for me ? We shall 
want to know how you get on, of course, and if there is 
anything we can do.” 

“You could do nothing more for me than you have al¬ 
ready, but-” He bent his head and wrote rapidly. 

“Here is the address you asked for. All my life I shall 
remember and be grateful!” 

Mary held out her hand and he touched it with his, 
bowed to King and, turning, walked straight ahead down 



OPENED EYES 


53 

the road as far as the lights could reveal him, with the 
water-proof bundle which he had never relinquished 
swinging from one hand. 

When the darkness had swallowed him up King turned 
the car without a word and swung back along the way 
they had come until he reached a cross highway leading 
down to the shore going westward. Here he stopped and 
turned toward Mary and she could see in the light from 
the dash that his face was distorted with renewed rage. 
His breath came in harsh gasps and involuntarily she 
shrank from him as he spoke. 

“Give me that paper!” 

“Wesley!” she faltered. “What paper ?” 

“The envelope with that crook’s address on it!” 

“I shall do nothing of the kind!” She strove to re¬ 
gain her poise. “He trusted me! What do you want to 
do with it ?” 

She had instinctively crumpled the envelope which she 
still held in her hand and he sneered: 

“Do you think I’m going to take it from you by force ? 
You are going to hand it to me, my dear!” 

There was more than anger in his face now, an expres¬ 
sion which she could not name but which struck terror to 
her heart. Something latent and unspeakably evil lurked 
in the nature of the man to whom she had only a few 
hours before given herself, and utter despair filled her 
being. 

“Why—do you say that?” she asked, scarcely conscious 
that she voiced the question. 

“Because I do not choose that my wife shall withhold 
from me the address of another man and that man a crim¬ 
inal!” His words came in a sudden rush. “I find him 
in your home, you cajole me into aiding his escape from 


LIBERATION 


54 

the law, you choose to criticize my attempt to rid us of 
his presence, but you have gone too far now! I demand 
that envelope!” 

Horror and utter loathing swept her that he could so 
deliberately and craftily place a false construction upon 
her compassionate if impulsive act, the more so as she 
knew he was using this perversion as a cloak for his 
real motive; but—she was his wife, if only in name! It 
was his right to demand the address from her! 

“You swear that you will destroy it?” Her own voice 
was low and shaking. It did not seem that he could 
be the same man as her lover of the previous day; it was 
not the man she had married, the man in whose keeping 
she had given her life! He had never existed except in 
her infatuated thoughts, but it was to him and to him 
alone she owed allegiance! 

“I promise you that IT 1 destroy it!” The slow smile 
which spread over his hideously contorted features added 
the last touch of horror to her soul. “Fve no interest in 
the fellow, but I mean to make sure that my wife has 
none, either!” 

Mechanically her trembling fingers smoothed the en¬ 
velope and she held it out to him. He snatched it and 
turned, bending low under the light to read what the con¬ 
vict had written, then with a chuckle of triumph he tore 
the envelope into small pieces and scattered them in the 
road. Turning once more, he opened the door beside 
him. 

“Get in here!” he commanded, and after a pause Mary 
obeyed. A sudden but firm resolve had taken possession 
of her, but to put it into execution she must wait till they 
had reached a town or at least a thickly settled com¬ 
munity. 


OPENED EYES 


55 

There their ways would part; she would go home and 
hide forever from her people and from all the world the 
events of that night! She must bear his name always 
while they two lived but it should be in secret, for he 
would never dare approach her in her home, and, if it 
came to the last extremity and her family learned the 
truth, they would protect her from him. 

King had started the car again and, turning from the 
general direction of Bridgeport, he headed west. He had 
not spoken again and, although Mary was aware that he 
glanced at her now and then in apparent uneasiness, she 
wrapped herself in a stony silence. Surely a highway so 
broad, and smooth, and well traveled must lead to some 
village populous enough to maintain a garage where she 
might hire a car to take her home; but she must dis¬ 
semble, she must not let him realize that the break was 
a final one! 

Surreptitiously she removed her glove and, slipping 
from her finger the ring which had been placed there 
only a few hours before, she flung it from her with a 
quick turn of her wrist. That was over! The knowledge 
of something latent and evil in his nature which had come 
to her in a revealing flash had absolved her from all her 
promises! She was bound to him forever, but free at 
least from contact and companionship with him! 

They drove on in the darkness for what seemed like 
many miles, with the black bulk of an occasional farm¬ 
house looming against the lesser somberness of the sky; 
but gradually it commenced to lighten behind them and a 
gray haze crept over the world. The farmhouse gave 
place to cottages set ever closer together, and finally a 
trolley line appeared before them, leading to a village 
street still slumbering in the coming dawn—a village 


56 LIBERATION 

streets with the lights of a service station gleaming near! 

“Stop, please,” Mary broke the silence at last, and 
because of something in her tone King slowed the 
car. 

“What for ?” he demanded, but his voice was not quite 
steady. 

“Stop!” she repeated, and with a grinding of brakes 
he obeyed. 

“There’s nothing the matter!” he grumbled. 

“Everything is the matter,” Mary said quietly. “I am 
going home.” 

“You’re—going?” King’s jaw fell. “Have you taken 
leave of your senses?” 

“I have just regained them, I think.” She turned in 
her seat to face him. “I am going no farther with you, 
I must go home—and think! Perhaps to-morrow, in a 
few days, but not to-night!” 

“This is madness! Do you realize that you’re my 
wife? Do you think I’ll give you up now?” he cried. 
“You belong to me, do you hear? You’re mine!” 

“Never, if you try to force me to go with you now! 
I must be alone.” 

At the ring of finality in her tones he growled harshly 
and with a sudden gesture reached for the speed lever, 
but, though she made no movement to stop him, he halted 
as though turned to stone at her next words. 

“If you start this car, I shall never be wife to you! 
Understand that and remember. Our ways part here for 
to-night, and if they ever come together remains for me 
to decide. I am going home.” 

His anger broke and he burst out in a tumult of en¬ 
treaty, pleading, threatening, cajoling by turns; but Mary 
waited until with a swift realization of its futility King 


OPENED EYES 


57 

checked himself and stared in silence. Then she opened 
the door on her side slowly and stepped into the road. 
He was still watching, crouched low over his motionless 
wheel, as her slender, erect figure turned and started for 
the lights of the service station. 


CHAPTER VI 


WITH THE HELP OF SUSAN 

E XHAUSTED in body, dazed and numb as though 
physical blows had beaten upon her spirit, Mary 
King, who had been Mary Greenough only yester¬ 
day, reached the entrance of the Lodge in the full sun¬ 
light of early morning and, paying the driver of her 
ramshackle car, crept wearily up the steps. 

She lifted a wavering hand toward the bell, but the 
door was torn open from within and a tall, erect, elderly 
figure barred her way. The ascetic, scholarly face be¬ 
neath the gray hair had a curious gray tinge also, but it 
was set in stern lines, and the cold eyes did not lose their 
expression of relentless severity as they gazed at the 
drooping girl. 

“Mary! What does this mean?” The deep tones 
were as uncompromising as those of a judge in voicing 
the question which precedes the pronouncement of sen¬ 
tence. 

Mary straightened as though, instead of intimidating 
her, this attitude had only braced her for the coming issue, 
and she returned her father’s gaze with a look no less in¬ 
flexible than his own. 

“I have mislaid my keys.” The absurdly trivial sen¬ 
tence fell mechanically from her lips. “I—should like 
to come in.” 

There was no appeal in her voice, merely a gentle re¬ 
minder that he was blocking her way, but at the tragedy 
58 


WITH THE HELP OF SUSAN 


59 

in her face Charles Greenough started, and the autocrat 
was lost in the desperately anxious father. 

“Mary, my child!” He drew her in tenderly and closed 
the door. “We must be quiet, your mother is very ill. 
Come with me.” 

Like a child again indeed, she permitted him to lead 
her into the library and sank down upon the couch. 
Her exhaustion, however, was physical only; her mind 
was clear, strengthened by the sheer necessity before her 
and her courage rose to meet the crucial moment. 

Her father disappeared into the dining-room to return 
with a steaming cup of coffee which he made her drink 
and then, placing the cup on the table, he seated himself 
before her. 

“Mary dear, where have you been? Tell me, and then 
you shall go to your rest.” 

“It doesn't matter, father. I'm home, now.” Mary 
drew a deep breath. 

“Doesn’t matter!” he exclaimed almost wildly. “Great 
Heavens, do you realize that your mother has been almost 
beside herself, that the police are looking for you, that I 
have aged ten years in this night? ‘Doesn’t matter!’ 
Mary, I want the truth!” 

“I’m sorry, father.” She shook her head. “I’m ter¬ 
ribly sorry for the anxiety and trouble that I’ve caused.” 

Charles Greenough waited, but as she added no further 
words his erect figure tensed. 

“You have no explanation to offer? No excuse for 
this—this unprecedented conduct?” 

“None, father.” Her tones were still gentle but into 
them had crept a note as firm as his own. “I haven’t 
anything to say; I never shall have.” 

“Mary, in another young girl, brought up in the mod- 


6 o 


LIBERATION 


ern, lax way and permitted to go and come as she pleased, 
visiting casual acquaintances whenever she wished, re¬ 
maining out all night without even a message to her par¬ 
ents, such a proceeding as this might not be unusual; but 
in you it’s a thing which I would not have believed pos¬ 
sible yesterday. It is utterly unlike you, and I can see, I 
know, that you have been in some deep trouble.’’ He 
paused but as she remained silent he added: “Is it—is it 
something you would rather talk over with your mother ?” 

Again Mary shook her head. 

“There is nothing to talk over with any one.” 

Her father struck the arm of his chair. 

“I think you must have gone mad! You who have 
been reared so carefully, guarded from all the pernicious 
influences of the modern age—you dare to leave your 
home secretly, without explanation, and expect to return 
after a night’s absence and not be questioned? Do you 
know that a desperate criminal escaped from the prison 
down there last night and hasn’t yet been caught? Can 
you picture your mother’s agony when we returned from 
your uncle’s to find you vanished from the house ? We— 
we feared you had encountered this wretch, been mur¬ 
dered, perhaps-” His voice broke and then hardened 

once more. “I’m your father, Mary! I demand to know 
where you have been!” 

Mary rose and looked down into his eyes. 

“I shall not answer any questions.” Her tones had 
lowered with a note in them which he had never heard 
before. “I am of age. Where I have been is no concern 
of any one but myself. I am a woman, a free agent, and 
I shall make no explanation.” 

Charles Greenough leaned back suddenly in his chair, 
the stern, indomitable will, which had governed his 



WITH THE HELP OF SUSAN 


61 


household, vanquished by one begotten of it. His docile, 
little daughter had become all at once a woman, a stranger 
asserting a right to existence, independent of his author¬ 
ity to question or command! 

Before the stricken look on his face Mary took a step 
forward and stretched out her hand, but at that moment 
there came a high-pitched cry from the head of the 
stairs. 

“Charles! Who are you talking to? Is there news?” 

The man rose and turned unsteadily to face the door¬ 
way as with a rustle of silk and laces the curtains parted, 
and a slight, delicately pretty, little woman appeared 
wavering for a moment on the threshold. Soft gray hair 
streamed unbound about her shoulders and her strained 
eyes stared in almost incredulous relief and joy. 

“Mary!” She held out trembling arms and Mary went 
straight into them. “My baby! Thank God!” 

“Mother!” Mary murmured gently, her whole body 
quivering with emotion but her hot eyes still dry. “It’s 
all right, mother! You shouldn’t have worried so, dear! 
You see I’m quite safe!” 

“You’d better sit down, Madeline,” Charles Greenough 
interrupted dryly with a resumption of his habitual man¬ 
ner. “Mary is quite safe, as it appears, but she refuses 
to make any explanation of her absence! She is utterly 
callous to the suffering she has caused us and says that 
she is a woman now and her conduct is no concern of 
ours!” 

It was then that he received the second shock of his 
well-ordered existence, for his usually submissive, meek 
wife looked around the shoulder of their taller daughter 
and snapped: 

“Nonsense, Charles! Of course she’s a woman! Any 


62 


LIBERATION 


one but you would have realized that long ago, but she’s 
my baby still! She’s come home to me, and she’s tired 
out, and of course she won’t answer questions now! 
Mary, come straight upstairs and rest!” 

A quick glance passed between husband and wife and 
then Mary was led gently up to her room. The final 
effort had taken the last of her strength and she submit¬ 
ted listlessly to being assisted into bed, dumbly grateful 
that her mother did not question nor complain; but as 
she listened to the murmured endearments, she was aware 
that the older woman was watching her almost furtively, 
as though she too were beholding a changeling in the 
household. 

It didn’t matter, she told herself listlessly as she sank 
back on her pillows; nothing mattered now. Life, she 
supposed, would go on presently just as before, as if that 
night and its bitterness had never been, and if she dimly 
realized the barrier that had suddenly reared itself be¬ 
tween herself and those who loved her, she was too tired 
to contemplate it. 

If only she could be alone! Her mother was still mov¬ 
ing softly but restlessly about the room, straightening 
chairs need f essly, picking up garments, arranging and re¬ 
arranging the curtains. Mary knew intuitively what she 
was waiting for, hoping for—the confidence that was 
never to be given. She turned wearily and closed her 
eyes, and presently, with a little fluttering sigh, Mrs. 
Greenough left the room. 

Mary’s eyes opened and she stared blankly about at 
the dainty, familiar appointments on either hand; the 
amber, gold-monogrammed toilet set that had been her 
father’s birthday gift, the desk from Uncle Henry which 
had been fashioned under the watchful care of Thomas 


WITH THE HELP OF SUSAN 63 

Chippendale himself, three centuries ago, the jewel casket 
with its simple rings and single strand of pearls which her 
mother had chosen for her. Had that momentous night 
been all a dream? Already it seemed as far'away as- 
though years had passed! 

Why was it that she couldn’t feel any more ? She had 
anticipated suffering, going through a veritable agony 
of mental torment and horror at the wreck she had made 
of her life, but somehow it didn’t touch her now. Had 
she become utterly insensible to all emotion or was it 
because she was so tired, so tired ? . . . 

The sun was at the height of broad noon when Mary 
awakened with a start and found herself sitting bolt up¬ 
right in bed. There seemed something strange in the 
atmosphere as though it were late, much later than she 
usually arose. Something had happened, but what? 

Then memory returned on a flood tide and she buried 
her face in her hands, shuddering as the events of the 
preceding afternoon and evening swept through her con¬ 
sciousness. That rash promise given to Wesley King, the 
coming of the escaped convict, the hurried, irrevocable 
marriage, the horror of disillusionment, the homeward 
flight and its aftermath in the clash of wills with her 
father. How could she have been so blind, so utterly 
blind? The sudden look of age in her father’s face, the 
agony of anxiety in her mother’s mutely questioning eyes 
—she had caused all this in her mad, unreasoning in¬ 
fatuation ! 

They would forgive in time when they had come to 
accept her silence, but its very acceptance would build 
a wall of reticence between them that must last always. 
Better that, for their sakes, than knowledge of the truth; 
but what of her own life and the blank years stretching 


64 LIBERATION 

ahead, blank, save for the horror that must be forever 
with her ? 

To Wesley King himself she gave little thought. The 
knowledge that she had never really loved him had be¬ 
wildered and dazed her till disillusionment brought the 
revelation that she had reared for herself an ideal that 
hadn't existed; one couldn't mourn the death of what had 
never been. In secret she bore his name, that was all. 
Because of that brief ceremony she was a prisoner, 
though she walked in seeming freedom, chained for life 
to that gross, vicious creature whose enmity against her 
would be as great as his former passion had been, but 
he was helpless to harm her now. 

To harm her! Mary thought with a swift, deathly 
chill at her heart of that other, the convict! The very 
impotence of Wesley's wrath against her would cause 
it to seek the first victim on which it could be wreaked, 
and who but the escaped prisoner? The man had held 
him up, bested him in their first encounter, left him tied 
to a tree in ignominous defeat, and later he had been 
forced to aid him. Wesley would never have forgiven 
that in any event, but now he would in the depths of his 
petty soul hold the fugitive responsible for the break be¬ 
tween them and her flight, and revenge was ready to his 
hand! 

George Lorrin on the threshold of freedom had en¬ 
trusted her with his address and she had betrayed that 
trust, for Wesley had read the lines hastily written on the 
envelope before he destroyed it and he would remember. 
Lorrin must be warned! 

Number Eighteen, Brinckerhof Square! The letters 
seemed to stand out before her eyes once more as they 
had trailed from his pencil. The address was in a local- 


WITH THE HELP OF SUSAN 65 

ity unknown to her but it didn’t sound like a place of 
business. If it were his own home any betrayal by Wes¬ 
ley would be superfluous, for the police must be watch¬ 
ing it already, they must have practically surrounded it 
from the moment word reached headquarters that George 
Lorrin had escaped; but he had said he had no friends 
and no one had visited him in prison. 

It was all very perplexing but she must risk it and 
trust to luck that Wesley, hoping for some word from 
her, had stayed his hand. 

Mary glanced at the little clock on her dressing-table 
and saw that the hands pointed to a quarter to one. 
What if it were already too late? What if Lorrin, in 
the dazed bewilderment of his first hours of liberty, had 
forgotten the possibility of surveillance on this haven and 
had gone straight into a net spread for him by the police, 
with or without the connivance of Wesley? 

She dared not let her mind dwell on such speculations, 
and while she bathed and dressed hastily Mary’s thoughts 
turned in another direction. That she must arouse her 
parents’ suspicions anew by leaving the house so soon 
again without explanation was unfortunate and she 
shrank from giving them further pain, but at any rate 
she had declared herself on an independent basis and it 
must not be revoked. The man who had thrown himself 
upon her mercy must be saved! 

There was a train for the city at one-forty-two and an¬ 
other at two-twenty-nine. She must catch the first, if 
possible; would it be best to leave a little note for her, 
mother stating simply that she had gone to New York but 
would return that night, and then steal out- 

Mary paused suddenly in the act of pinning on her hat, 
and a faint smile came to her wan lips, for a voice had 



66 


LIBERATION 


floated up the stairway and filtered through her closed 
door; a soothing, feminine voice with a rich, purling 
brogue that thirty years in an alien land had not succeeded 
in eliminating. 

“Yes, ma’am. I’m after looking to see now.” 

“Susan!” Mary opened the door and called softly. 

Heavy feet plodded up the stairs at an accelerated pace 
and a thin but large-framed woman appeared, with 
streaks of gray in her sandy hair and an habitually pes¬ 
simistic look upon her sharp-featured countenance. Her 
eyes brightened and a smile twitched at the corners of 
her mouth, but she closed the door and, leaning against 
it, folded her hands over her apron band and sternly 
surveyed the girl she had brought up from babyhood. 

“Never did I think to see this day!” she observed. 
“You that’s been kept like a duckling raised be a hen— 
meaning no disrespect to your mother—to go gallivanting 
off the minute our backs are tur-rned!” 

“Oh, Susan!” Mary went swiftly to her and covered 
the work-worn hands with her own soft ones. “You’ve 
got to help me! I must go to New York on the next 
train, just for a few hours, and I don’t want father and 
mother to know till I’ve gone, for I simply won’t answer 
any questions now. Where are they?” 

“In the lib’ry,” Susan conceded. “Tell me wan thing, 
Miss Mary; is it any trouble you’ve got into? If it is, 
I’ll help you till I drop, but if it’s foolishness-” 

“It isn’t, Susan,” Mary interrupted for the second 
time. “It is trouble, but not to me. I’ve got to—to take 
a message for somebody. There! I’ve told you more 
than I’ll ever tell anybody else! You never knew me to 
fib to you, did you?” 

Susan sniffed. 



WITH THE HELP OF SUSAN 67 

“Manny’s the time, though I never let on that I saw 
through you!” She paused and then added as if to her¬ 
self. “Seems to me wan o’ them tall dining-room win¬ 
dows is open on the terrace and, the lib’ry being this side, 
no wan’d see out that way to the small, little gate, but 
what’ll I be saying when I go down ?” 

“You’re a dear, Susan!” Mary hugged the angular 
form and then turned to the dressing-table for her purse 
and gloves. “Just say that—that I was awake but didn’t 
want to be disturbed—it’s the truth, Susan!” 

“The deceit of you!” Susan shook her head. Then her 
sharp features grew wistful and she asked anxiously: 
“You’re sure you’re doing right, dearie? You’ll not be 
getting into anny trouble yourself be what you’re running 
off for?” 

“Quite sure.” Mary hesitated for a moment but her 
eyes fell on the clock and with a final pat on the shoulder 
of her old nurse she sped softly out and down the back 
staircase. 

At its foot she halted, listening, then made for the 
dining-room by way of the pantry, and in another 
moment she was slipping between the flowering hedges 
toward the gate. If only she would be in time! 


CHAPTER VII 


NUMBER EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 
S the quickest way of reaching an unfamiliar des¬ 



tination, Mary, on arriving in the city, took a 


taxi and directed the driver to take her to Brinck- 
erhof Square without designating the number. She had 
made up her mind to reconnoiter first, in the event that 
police were watching the house, but come what might she 
meant to enter it and find some friend of Lorrin who 
might warn him if he himself were not hiding there. 

The taxi was bowling down town, past the fashionable 
shopping center and the manufacturing district to a 
region quite foreign to Mary, where huge warehouses 
elbowed widespread market places, and smaller shops, 
sandwiched in between, bore alien names and sometimes 
lettering in strange script. The streets were narrow and 
dirty, jammed with trucks and drays, and she was won¬ 
dering more and more how Lorrin could be connected 
with such a locality as this when all at once the taxi 
turned a corner and stopped, and Mary gasped in sheer 
surprise. 

A tiny square faced her, an oasis in this desert of sor¬ 
did commerce; velvety green lawns and winding gravel 
paths were shaded by dusty, towering trees, the whole 
enclosed within a high iron fence and flanked by old- 
fashioned brick houses, set well back from the street be¬ 
hind tiny patches of garden. No mansions of a bygone 
aristocracy, these, but the solid homes of a past genera- 


68 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 69 

tion of gentlefolk, and Mary drew a deep breath as she 
descended from the taxi. 

Many of the houses had evidently long been unoccu¬ 
pied, several were apparently closed for the summer, and 
the neighborhood seemed semideserted, basking in the hot 
sun of mid-afternoon, but Mary dared not let herself be 
deceived by its air of peaceful serenity. The peddler 
with his tray of shoe laces and collar buttons, the tramp 
hunched drowsily on a bench in the little park, the 
butcher's boy, white-aproned, sauntering along swinging 
his empty basket, the organ grinder trundling his top- 
heavy contrivance beside the curb—any or all of these 
might be detectives on guard and she could take no 
chances. 

The corner house bore the number 19, and that next it 
21, as she saw in a quick comprehensive glance. Number 
18, then, must be directly across the square and, tucking 
beneath her arm the magazine she had purchased on the 
train, Mary strolled leisurely over to the nearest gate of 
the park and along a path which promised to lead to the 
other side. 

Here and there a woman sat sewing and gently rocking 
a shrouded baby carriage, or a shabby man anxiously 
scanned the advertising pages of some cast-off newspaper, 
while groups of children played about listlessly; but no 
one paid any attention to her and Mary quickened her 
pace. A park keeper, gathering up stray papers with his 
pointed stick and bag, gave her a passing glance from be¬ 
neath grizzled brows and then, with her heart in her 
mouth, Mary saw a bluecoat rounding the turn in the 
path. 

His broad, good-natured face was ruddy and moist 
from the heat and his small, twinkling eyes seemed to 


LIBERATION 


70 

hold no guile, but the girl felt as though she too were a 
fugitive from the law as she hurried past him toward the 
gate facing her. 

To loiter about or seat herself on a bench while she 
studied her surroundings would be unendurable now, for 
every moment’s delay increased her inward agitation. 
There was nothing to connect her in the eyes of the law 
with the escape of a convict from the prison up the river 
and if she were intercepted and questioned she could mus¬ 
ter some excuse about a mistaken address; she must 
chance everything now! 

Mary left the park and started across the street, not¬ 
ing that the corner house, empty and in obvious disrepair, 
was numbered 16, and the one next to it was 18, as she had 
supposed. Unlike its neighbor it was trim and cheerful, 
with dainty frilled curtains and flowering boxes at the 
windows and a well-clipped hedge on either side of the 
short, flagged path leading to the low, white-stepped en¬ 
trance. It was a real home, and the home of a woman, 
unless Mary’s intuition was at fault, and for a moment 
she hesitated, disconcerted although she could not have 
told why. Lorrin had had no visitors, he claimed to be 
friendless—could she herself have made a mistake in the 
number ? 

But a ragged man with a sack on his shoulder was 
poking in an ash-can near by, a huckster with a wagon¬ 
load of cherries paused in his raucous calling and the 
youth, who had paused by the railing to light a cigarette, 
gazed at her with sharp, narrow eyes. Summoning all 
her self-control, Mary forced herself to walk with a brisk, 
purposeful air up the path and the shallow steps, and 
she sounded the antique knocker with a steady hand. 

She was obliged to lift it and let it fall twice more, 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 71 

however, with intervals between that set every nerve 
a-tingle, before at last shuffling steps came from within 
and the door opened a narrow space to disclose the 
wrinkled face of an old man who peered at her with faded 
but wary eyes. 

The immaculate collar and black-coated shoulder that 
showed through the aperture also betokened a man serv¬ 
ant and Mary was at a loss how to state her mission, 
but there was no time for a lengthy explanation. 

“Does—does any one live here who knows Mr. George 
Lorrin?” she asked in a low, hurried tone, and at the 
name the old man started. 

“Why, miss?” he queried in return. “There’s noth¬ 
ing to say to anybody for the press-” 

“Oh!” Mary interrupted breathlessly, as a vague ink¬ 
ling came to her. “I—I’m not a reporter, I’m a friend! 
He gave me this address himself—never mind when! I 
must see some one who knows him! Who lives here ?” 

The old man’s stare intensified and his tremulous lips 
worked. Then he replied simply: 

“His mother.” 

“Oh, let me in!” Mary gasped as a wave of relief 
swept over her. “Don’t keep me standing out here, some 
one may be watching! I must see her! Say that I have 
something to tell her!” 

But at her first words, perhaps at something he saw in 
her face, the old man had thrown wide the door and 
Mary passed into a cool, dim hallway, unexpectedly 
spacious from the exterior of the small house, with a 
shrouded lamp on the newel post of a broad staircase 
facing her. 

The old man closed and bolted the door and then ap¬ 
proached her. 



LIBERATION 


72 

“Does Mrs. Lorrin know your name, Miss?” 

“Not unless she has heard from her son—recently.” 
Mary emphasized the last word meaningly. “Tell her 
that I am Miss Greenough and I come from Ossining. 
What I have to tell her is of vital importance and I can¬ 
not talk to any one else.” 

“This way, Miss.” The old man's voice too was shak¬ 
ing now and he showed her into a room at the right, turn¬ 
ing to patter with feebly scrambling steps up the stairs. 

Mary found herself in a long, narrow drawing-room, 
draped funereally in summer linens, but a low bowl of 
roses stood on the shapeless, covered table and a dim 
glow of sunlight came through the down-drawn shades. 

The house seemed very peaceful, very still, as she 
seated herself on a chair facing the door. The huckster 
had recommenced calling his wares in the street outside 
but his hoarse voice was subdued and of the roar of 
traffic beyond the square only a faint murmur reached 
her ears. Then there came slow, soft footsteps from the 
stairs and a tall, slender, black-clad woman stood before 
her, with masses of snow-white hair drawn back in 
waves from a face as pallid and set as though carved in 
marble. 

“You wished to see me?” she asked in a dull, lifeless 
monotone. “You are Miss Greenough? I am Mrs. 
Lorrin.'' 

Although wholly feminine, there was an unmistakable 
resemblance in her straight, regular features and clear, 
blue-gray eyes to those of the man who had sought 
Mary's mercy the night before and, rising, she held out 
both hands impulsively. 

“You know he—he escaped?” she cried in a hushed, 
eager tone. “He found his way to my home, he told me 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 73 

he was innocent and I believed him! I live close by the 
prison and I persuaded a friend to get him away in his 
car-” 

“You—you did that for my boy!” The monotone 
thrilled now with emotion and the woman swayed for¬ 
ward, her icy cold hands clutching those of the girl! 
“You believed and helped him! What can I say-?” 

“Don’t try to thank me, please!” As though she her¬ 
self had been the hostess, Mary led her to a davenport 
and sat down beside her. “You see, I’ve lived there all 
my life, looking down on those walls and feeling sorry 
for the poor men shut away behind them, no matter what 
they’d done, and to think of an innocent person—oh, I 
couldn’t endure it! I—we drove Mr. Lorrin a round¬ 
about way to Bridgeport and left him there long after 
midnight; he had a change of clothing and some money, 
and he gave me this address when I asked where we 
might reach him, but he didn’t say who lived here.” 

“Bridgeport!” Mrs. Lorrin whispered. She was evi¬ 
dently fighting back her tears and her face looked 
strangely, incongruously youthful beneath the crown of 
white hair. “After midnight! Ah, God knows where 
he is now!” 

“Then you haven’t heard from him?” asked Mary. 
“He hasn’t tried to come home? Thank heaven for that! 
I was so afraid I should be too late!” 

“Why? What have you come to tell me?” Deadly 
fear breathed through Mrs. Lorrin’s tones. 

“That he mustn’t come here, of all places! If you 
hear from him tell him to stay away, and to communi¬ 
cate with me if he has any message for you. He will 
know my name and our place is called Green Lodge. 
Mrs. Lorrin, I don’t trust the friend who drove us last 




LIBERATION 


74 

night; he wouldn’t have done it, only I compelled him, 
and he wanted to give your son up, to be taken back to 
that place! He would now, if he could, I know it! He 
saw the address Mr. Lorrin gave me and I’m afraid he 
means harm! That’s why I came.” 

“It was dear and generous of you!” Mrs. Lorrin fal¬ 
tered. “The risk you ran in helping him last night, and 
now—oh, pray God that he will not come home! Every 
one who knows him or remembers his—his trial, knows 
that he has lived here always—pray that he realizes the 
police must be watching, waiting for him!” 

“They have been here?” Mary’s voice, too, had sunk 
almost to a whisper. 

“Yes. That was the first I knew.” Mrs. Lorrin 
bowed her head. “At six o’clock this morning they—• 
they came! My old butler and his wife sleep at the top 
of the house and it was I who heard their knocking and 
let them in. When I saw the uniforms I thought they 
had come to tell me that my son was dead in that fearful 
place, killed by torture or shame, and I fainted. When 
I recovered consciousness they had searched the house, 
but one of them remained until nearly noon. Oh, my 
dear, if you knew the agony I have endured! To think 
of my son, my boy, swimming that river under a hail 
of shots or wandering, hiding in those woods, hunted 
like a wild beast. And he is innocent, innocent!” 

She broke down utterly in a storm of tears and Mary 
put her arms about her and held her so in silence, know¬ 
ing that no words of hers could bring consolation to such 
grief as this. How gentle and trustful, how almost im¬ 
possibly young the mother of George Lorrin seemed! 
His haggard, lined face appeared before her, with the 
touch of silver discernible even in his close-shaven 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 75 

temples, his fine eyes darkened with suffering and mental 
torture, and Mary could conceive him as being almost 
older than the woman sobbing in her arms. 

The thought of him as he had come to her, exhausted, 
desperate, all but done for, made her visualize clearly the 
fears which must have haunted his mother, which must 
still haunt her till news of one sort or another put an 
end to her hideous suspense and the girl’s heart went 
out to her; but she only held her the closer and smoothed 
the snowy hair until the paroxysm had passed and Mrs. 
Lorrin sat up, wiping her eyes on a tiny lace wisp. 

“Thank you, my dear!” Her breath caught like that 
of a child after a crying spell. “I’m sorry, but I—I 
simply couldn’t control myself any longer!—Tell me, 
how—how did he look, my boy? Is he—what have they 
done to him, there in that place?” 

“He looked ill, and—and worn, Mrs. Lorrin, but nat¬ 
urally under the terrific strain of getting away he would 
appear to be almost prostrated. Food and the long ride in 
the motor did him a great deal of good, though, and when 
we left him he was much better and very hopeful.” 
Mary sought to reply as reassuringly as she could. “You 
haven’t seen him lately ?” 

“Not for more than two years, since they took him 
away!” Mrs. Lorrin sighed. “He wouldn’t let me go 
to see him; that was the only request he made and I was 
forced to grant it although it almost broke my heart! He 
said it would kill him to have me see him there and I 
knew he meant it. But he might have been there for 
years, for they gave him an indeterminate sentence! The 
best, fullest years of my son’s life! Why is such injus¬ 
tice allowed in the world!” 

What crime had George Lorrin been convicted of that 


LIBERATION 


76 

carried with it such a severe sentence? Mary dared not 
ask, but her thoughts flew back to two years before when 
for long months she lay in the delirium and subsequent 
inertia of typhoid; that was why she had not heard of 
the trial! Unconsciously, she voiced what was in her 
mind. 

“I had a long illness two years ago. Perhaps that’s 
why I never heard or read of your son’s trouble.” 

“Didn’t he tell you last night?” Mrs. Lorrin asked in 
surprise. “It was forgery; they said he had made out 
a check to himself ‘or bearer’ in Mr. Wharton’s hand¬ 
writing and signed it with Mr. Wharton’s name, then 
endorsed it with his own and cashed it. They produced 
the very check in court and even I, his mother, couldn’t 
have sworn from the signature on the back that it wasn’t 
his own handwriting, though I knew it wasn’t! The 
check was for five thousand dollars, Miss Greenough, and 
the judge gave him an indeterminate sentence because he 
wouldn’t make restitution, but how could he ? He didn’t 
have the money, he had never had it! They arrested and 
convicted him after what seemed to be a fair trial, but 
oh! he was guiltless!” 

“Of course he was!” Mary echoed soothingly. “I 
knew it the first moment I saw him, I think, even though 
I hadn’t any idea what he was supposed to have done. 
Who is Mr. Wharton, Mrs. Lorrin?” 

“J. W. Wharton? One of the biggest attorneys in the 
city,” the other woman replied. She was staring straight 
before her and did not see that the girl at her side had 
quivered strangely and raised one hand slowly to her 
temple. 

J. W. Wharton! The great J. W.! Wesley King had 
spoken of him once as though he had been associated with 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 77 

him in some way! Could Wesley have known George 
Lorrin? Was that why he looked at him so strangely 
when he signed his name as witness to that travesty of a 
marriage in the humble parsonage the night before? He 
hadn’t recognized him before that and as obviously Lor¬ 
rin did not know him. What could it mean ? 

“I’ve heard of him, of course,” Mary remarked me¬ 
chanically. “He specializes in the care of large estates, 
doesn’t he?” 

“Yes. My son was employed by him as a collector 
from various outside agencies; he wasn’t in close touch 
with the affairs of the office, but he knew the rentals of 
most of the larger parcels of real estate in Mr. Wharton’s 
care as administrator and that told against him at the 
trial,” Mrs. Lorrin explained. “I was so happy when 
he went to work for such a celebrated man four years 
ago! He was just twenty-six then, and I hoped it would 
lead to great things! It has lead to—-to worse than 
death!” 

“Then he is only thirty now!” Mary exclaimed inad¬ 
vertently, but the mother had understood. 

“Does he look so old, then?” she asked wistfully. “He 
was such a fine looking boy—oh, not because he was 
mine, but he had such laughing eyes and he was so buoy¬ 
ant, so full of magnetism and the very joy of being alive, 
until the day when Mr. Wharton sent for him to come to 
the office and laid that check before him for an explana¬ 
tion ! Oh, God, if I could only know where he is now! 
Whether he is alive or dead, free or being taken back to 
prison!” 

The tears were flowing again, but slowly, as though 
the blue-gray eyes were drained by much weeping and 
Mary pressed her hand. 


78 


LIBERATION 


“He’s miles away from the prison, where nobody 
would think of suspecting him, Mrs. Lorrin!” she cried. 
“No news is good news now, and surely you know he’s 
thinking of you every minute! He’ll come to you as soon 
as it is safe!” 

“Will it ever be, while this cloud is over him?” the 
other woman sighed. “He’s all I’ve had you see, Miss 
Greenough; I was only eighteen when he came to me and 
his father had died two months before. We’ve been more 
like pals, always, than mother and son, and it seems a 
lifetime since he was taken from me! I have a scrap¬ 
book with all the clippings of that terrible time. Would 
you like to see it? It does me good to talk it over with 
some one and I’ve denied myself to all my former 
friends.” 

It did not need the appeal in her voice to cause Mary’s 
eager reply: 

“I want to see it with all my heart, Mrs. Lorrin!” 

Only forty-eight, and her hair was white! Mary’s 
eyes blurred as she watched the slender figure disappear 
from the room. No wonder she had appeared incon¬ 
gruously young, in spite of her suffering! In the first 
glance one would have thought her sixty, at least! What 
had life done to these two? The son had been “laugh¬ 
ing-eyed,” “buoyant, full of magnetism, the joy of being 
alive”! Mary thought of the wreck of a man who had 
tottered to her door, and shuddered. A wave of sym¬ 
pathy and compassion swept over her, stronger even than 
that which she had felt in his presence and with it came 
a swift resolve; she would help him, fight for him, in his 
effort to prove his innocence! 

Mrs. Lorrin returned and silently placed a huge, fiat 
volume in her hands and Mary scanned the newspaper 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 79 

clippings it contained rapidly, skipping the repetitions. 
The story they told was very much as Mrs. Lorrin had 
related it; the young man, when confronted with the check 
by his employer, had appeared dumbfounded and could 
offer no explanation. He admitted knowing that seven 
days before that check had been cashed, on the first of 
September, as on every quarterly, approximately a hun¬ 
dred and fifty thousand dollars, monthly rental on prop¬ 
erty belonging to several large estates, had been placed 
in Mr. Wharton’s hands, for remittance to the various 
heirs, to some of whom checks were not to be sent until 
the tenth or fifteenth. The accused protested throughout 
the proceedings that he knew nothing of the check, had 
never seen nor heard of it before and could not imagine 
how his signature came to be upon it as payee. Six 
months had elapsed since the check had been cashed, for 
it was the following June before the forgery was dis¬ 
covered. George Lorrin had asserted his innocence up 
to the last. The cashier, who had officiated at the paying 
teller’s window, died a month later and no one could be 
found who could identify the prisoner as the man who 
presented the check, but the significant “or bearer” on its 
forged face told heavily against the accused man. 

These were the details which stood out most clearly in 
Mary’s mind, but the photographic reproductions and 
courtroom sketches of George Lorrin and his mother 
shocked her! Could that grave-faced but boyish looking 
man have become in two years the wasted, pallid ghost 
of last night, the white-haired, intolerably aged woman 
beside her have been the modish youthful matron of the 
illustrations? It was grotesque, horrible! 

Then Mary turned a page and came upon a photograph 
which made her pause. It was a reproduction of both 


So 


LIBERATION 


sides of the check which had sent Lorrin to prison and 
she gazed at it long and intently. It was dated “Sept. 8, 
1920,” numbered “766” and read: “Pay to the order of 
George Lorrin—or bearer—Five thousand dollars—■ 
°%oo.” The signature, “J. W. Wharton,” was obviously 
in the same rounded and easily flowing yet firm hand as 
the rest, and then Mary’s glance shifted to the reproduc¬ 
tion of the reverse side of the check and she gasped. 

There before her eyes was the replica of the signature 
which Lorrin had affixed to the marriage record the night 
before! Every curve, every line, every slant and shade 
and space were identical, as though they flowed at that 
moment from beneath his pen, and for one sickening 
moment the girl’s heart failed her. Could it be? Then 
his face rose before her again, his eyes as he had bade 
her look at him, and the shadow of doubt was banished! 
Another’s hand, with devilish cunning and transcendent 
imitative ability, had copied his on that check, just as it 
had copied that of the great “J. W.” himself in making 
it out—a double forgery! Then another point leaped 
suddenly to her consciousness and she cried: 

“The check is made payable to your son or bearer, Mrs. 
Lorrin! If he had forged it himself, the “bearer” part 
would have been unnecessary, don’t you see? He could 
have made it out simply to himself and put it through! 
Why didn’t the defense bring that out?” 

Mrs. Lorrin smiled faintly. 

“They tried to, my dear, but the prosecution only 
turned it against George. They argued that he did that 
as a precaution, in the event that he met with any diffi¬ 
culty in having it cashed or his nerve failed him, so that 
he might take some confederate into his confidence! I 
was shaken for a moment when I saw that signature! 


EIGHTEEN, BRINCKERHOF SQUARE 8r 

When my son was out on bail I asked him to tell me the 
truth! I told him that a mother would forgive anything, 
anything! That I only wanted to know! My boy, who 
has never lied to me in all his life, swore that he had not 
written that signature, and I believed him—I believe him 
now! A son would not lie to his mother at such a time, 
no matter how base he might be, and my boy was and is 
the soul of honor! He never committed that forgery! 
He swore it to me! Some one else signed his name to 
the check and my son has paid the penalty!” 

Her voice rang with a conviction that was almost ex¬ 
alted and Mary exclaimed: 

“It is true! He swore to me also that he was innocent, 
and, like you, I believed him! I know he is innocent, 
and Fm going to help you prove it!” 

“You!” Mrs. Lorrin cried, a faint light of hope creep¬ 
ing into her eyes. Then it died and she shook her head 
slowly. “My dear, it is wonderful of you, a stranger, to 
champion him when all the world condemns, but what can 
we do? I have never ceased since his conviction to try 
to exonerate him but it is hopeless! Every path of in¬ 
vestigation leads to a blind trail and I am almost at the 
end of my resources.” 

“Fm not!” Mary returned. “What is more, I have a 
plan! Don’t ask me now, only believe that I am truly a 
friend and that I mean to help! You know where to 
reach me and I, you. Remember my message when you 
hear from your son, and pray that we may be successful!” 

Mrs. Lorrin bent swiftly and kissed her. 

“God in His mercy led my son to you last night, dear 
child, and He has sent you to me to-day! I shall remem¬ 
ber and have faith!” 


CHAPTER VIII 


AN ULTIMATUM 

M ARY left the little house on Brinckerhof Square 
aglow with the fire of her inspiration. George 
Lorrin was innocent, but in all the world no 
one believed in him except that frail, prematurely aged 
woman and herself! She could guess that the counsel 
for the defense had not been selected with any too wise 
discrimination and Wharton, himself an attorney and an 
astute one, had declared on the witness stand, as reported 
in the clippings of the trial which she had just read, that 
he was determined to make an example of the guilty man. 

Against his will the man whose name she bore in secret 
had provided clothing and money for the fugitive; 
against his will he had taken him out of the danger zone; 
and against his will he must be forced to help him now! 

If detectives were watching the house, as appeared cer¬ 
tain, Mary caught no glimpse of them, but, realizing that 
any one who left it would be under surveillance, she 
crossed the Square and walked until she came to a car 
line. From this she changed to a bus, then a taxi, a sub¬ 
way train and surface car again, heedless of whither they 
took her and intent only on throwing a possible shadower 
off her trail. 

Only when more than two hours had passed and dark¬ 
ness had fallen was she content and then, making her 
way to a pay station, she called up the club at which Wes¬ 
ley King made his home in the city. 

82 


AN ULTIMATUM 83 

He was there, and his greeting came rapturously over 
the wire: 

“Mary! I’ve been waiting all day, all last night after 
you left me! I know that my behavior was abominable, 
beneath contempt, but if you only knew how I’ve suf¬ 
fered, how I regret-■” 

“Don’t let’s discuss that now, Wesley, not in this way,” 
Mary interrupted him as gently as she could, but the very 
sound of his voice had made her shiver with repulsion. 
“I thought you might care to meet me and have a little 
talk.” 

“Of course, dear! I want to see you more than any¬ 
thing in all this world! Where are you?” 

“I’m in town,” she replied noncommittally. “My 
people know nothing about last night. If you can sug¬ 
gest a quiet place, some little out-of-the-way restaurant, 
perhaps ?” 

“A restaurant!” His voice was thick with disappoint¬ 
ment. “Oh, Mary, I couldn’t bear meeting you in public, 
to sit and talk to you with strangers watching us! Not 
after last night, dear! Won’t you let me come for you, 
wherever you are, and let us go where we can be quite 
alone?” 

“We have a great deal to say to each other, Wesley,” 
she said coldly. “If you do not care to meet me under 
the conditions I have made, I shall not offer you a second 
opportunity.” 

“Mary!” The wire sang with his alarm. “Don’t ring 
off! Mary! You know I’ll do anything you wish, any¬ 
thing! For God’s sake, try to be a little kind to me! 
Mary!” 

“I am listening,” she responded. 

“I know just the place if you don’t mind rather humble 



LIBERATION 


84 

surroundings. It’s quite famous among a few select 
people, but practically deserted at this time of year. It's 
called ‘Tommaso’s,’ and it’s down on Fourth Street. A 
taxi will take you there and you’ll find me waiting out¬ 
side. Oh, Mary, you won’t fail me! You’ll surely 
come ?” 

“I’ll be there within half an hour, Wesley,” Mary as¬ 
sured him and hung up the receiver. 

The end of her wandering journey about the city had 
left her far up town on the East Side, in a cheap and 
crowded shopping center, and several minutes elapsed 
before she could find a taxi. The trip down to the restau¬ 
rant took longer than she had anticipated, too, and she 
was consumed with impatience, for her plan had sprung 
full-grown to her mind and she was anxious to put it 
to the test. 

She had never wanted to see Wesley’s face again, she 
shrank even from the sound of his voice, yet now Mary 
put all thought of self aside. For the sake of the man 
who had come to her in his extremity and his grief- 
stricken, helplessly inadequate mother, for the sake of 
what truth and justice might still exist in the world, his 
innocence must be established and she could hesitate at 
no means. 

The taxi drew up at last before an old-fashioned, high- 
stooped brownstone house with only the two tall lamps 
on the entrance posts and a small brass plate beside the 
door to denote that it was other than a private dwelling, 
although from within there came the faint sobbing wail 
of a violin solo. 

Wesley King, with a light tweed top-coat over his im¬ 
maculate dinner clothes, was standing at the curb and in 
the glow of the lamps she admitted to herself in imper- 


AN ULTIMATUM 


85 

sonal appraisal that he was remarkably good-looking, 
quite the handsomest man she had ever seen. The Mary 
of yesterday would have met him with fast beating heart 
and adoration in her eyes, she reflected with a slight curl 
of her lip. That was yesterday! 

He greeted her with outstretched hand but even before 
he spoke she saw that his mood, or perhaps his tactics, 
had changed. 

“It was good of you to come.” His tone was gravely, 
coolly courteous. “You have done me much honor.” 

Was there a note of sarcasm in his tone? Mary won¬ 
dered as he assisted her to alight and paid the taxi driver. 
In his former attitude he was far more distasteful to her, 
but he would have been easier to handle. Would it be 
difficult to persuade him ? Mary smiled to herself. From 
the moment when her disillusionment began she had held 
the ascendancy over him, dominated every situation, and 
she was confident that her power would not fail now. 

He led her up the steps in silence, and the door opened 
before them to disclose an oily but smiling maitre d’hotel 
who greeted Wesley King by name and ushered them up 
the stairs, past the larger, crowded restaurant below, to a 
smaller one on the second floor where the tables were 
fewer, the lights more dim, and scarcely half a dozen 
couples were scattered about the room. The high, marble 
mantel with its heavy, gilt mirror and the crystal chan¬ 
delier of a staid, bygone era, lent an air of distinction to 
the surroundings, but Mary had only time for a vague 
impression, for the maitre d’hotel was leading the way 
toward the rear, to a tiny balcony hung with lanterns 
where a small table had been laid for two and a tall 
screen assured semiprivacy from the interior. 

The sound of the violin downstairs came to Mary only 


86 


LIBERATION 


in a thin, tenuous thread of melody, the night was cool 
and starry and the erstwhile prosaic back yard below had 
been transformed into a miniature garden with soft 
lights and potted plants. 

Mary sank into a chair with a little sigh of relief; the 
place could not have been better chosen for her purpose. 
Wesley could be tactful when it suited his own ends! 

“I hope you like it here,” he remarked as he unfolded 
his serviette. I’ve ordered dinner ahead—you don’t mind ? 
The restaurant downstairs is for the general run of 
patrons, but one has to be rather a favorite of Tommaso’s 
and show due appreciation of his chef-d’oeuvres to be 
admitted up here.” 

“It is very attractive,” Mary murmured, aware that 
he was only making small-talk until she herself should 
bring up the issue between them. “It’s restful, too, and 
I’ve had rather a trying day.” 

The waiter had served them and retired, and King’s 
manner underwent a slight change. 

“Poor child!” He leaned forward. “Were your 
people difficult, Mary?” 

“I told you that they know nothing,” she replied. “I 
used one of your arguments of yesterday, Wesley; I told 
them that I was of age and meant to order my own life 
as seemed best to me. I offered no explanation of my ab¬ 
sence and refused to be questioned. I tell you this be¬ 
cause I think you have a right to know.” 

“Is that the only right I have, Mary?” His voice 
shook a trifle. “Have I forfeited everything else, all the 
future I had hoped for and planned, because of my in¬ 
sane jealousy last night? It’s true! I was jealous! It 
seemed more than I could bear that the supreme hour 
of our lives should be intruded upon by any stranger, 


AN UTIMATUM 


87 

more than all, that we should endanger our own safety by 
aiding a fugitive from the law. The thought of you 
being dragged through such a horrible experience drove 
me almost mad, but I know that’s no excuse to offer.” 

“No, it isn’t,” Mary agreed quietly. “It wasn’t so 
much that you lost control of yourself, but the traits of 
character you revealed for the first time showed me how 
blind I had been.” 

“Don’t say that, dear!” he begged, a dull flush mount¬ 
ing in his face. “Don’t even think it, for it isn’t true! 
I was beside myself, I scarcely knew what I was saying or 
doing! I acted like a cad, I know! I was beastly, but 
don’t tell me that I’ve estranged you forever! You 
couldn’t have stopped loving me just for last night!” 

The entrance of the waiter with jellied consomme gave 
them pause, but when he had withdrawn Mary said 
slowly: 

“I don’t know, Wesley. I’m trying to be fair to you 
and to myself. I feel now as though my affection for 
you had never been, all emotion seems dead within me. 
I cannot be sure that it could be reawakened, but legally, 
at least, we are man and wife, and I have come to you 
now to give you a last chance. I warn you, you will have 
to win me all over again, and I promise nothing.” 

“Darling!” His hand crept forward across the table, 
but he drew it back before it had touched hers. “That is 
more than I deserve, I know! It’s all I ask! You needn’t 
promise anything, I am willing to take the chance and I 
warn you in turn I shall win you back, Mary, I shall 
make you forget last night and love me more than you 
did before! I’ve been through the tortures of hell since 
dawn, despising myself, fearing that I’d lost you for¬ 
ever! I’d give anything in all this world if we could go 


88 LIBERATION 

back to yesterday afternoon when you promised to be 
my wife!” 

He did it very well! Mary was astonished and shocked 
at her own detached cynicism, but his tones of a few hours 
before, bullying, sneering, insulting, and that expression 
of latent evil in the glare of the motor lamps, were 
stamped ineffaceably upon her memory for all time, and 
she shook her head. 

“We can’t ever go back, Wesley! We can only go 
forward and make amends as best we can for our mis¬ 
takes.” 

“I will make amends!” he cried eagerly, “I will abase 
myself before you, I throw myself now on your mercy 
as that convict did last night! Will you be less kind to 
me than you were to him, a stranger ?” 

It was the opportunity for which she had waited and 
Mary drew a deep breath. 

“He was a stranger as you say; a stranger to me, at 
least. He had not forfeited my respect, though, even if 
he was an escaped prisoner!” She leaned forward in her 
turn as he flinched. “Wesley, did you recognize that man 
when he stopped you in the road ?” 

At the direct question his eyes opened and then nar¬ 
rowed swiftly. 

“ ‘Recognize him’ ?” he repeated. “I never saw him 
before in all my life! Why do you ask me such a strange 
question ?” 

“You recognized his signature when he wrote it at 
the minister’s,” she asserted, still quietly. “You knew 
who he was and what he was supposed to have done. I 
was watching you and I saw that.” 

Was it a conscious movement which made King lean 
slightly back so that his face was in shadow? 


AN ULTIMATUM 


89 

‘‘It was rather a celebrated case a couple of years ago, 
and when I learned his name I recalled it,” he explained. 

“Was it only at his trial that you heard of it for the 
first time?” Mary persisted. “Had you never known of 
him before?” 

There was a perceptible pause and then King replied 
with every evidence of candor. 

“Of course I had, but only casually. I’ve told you I 
was associated with J. W. Wharton, the big administra¬ 
tion lawyer? He’s the man whose name this fellow 
Lorrin forged, and who prosecuted him to the limit. I 
acted as treasurer for him in certain estates which were 
held in escrow, and I occupied this position at the time the 
forgery was discovered. You learned all about it from 
the papers to-day, didn’t you?” 

“I’d like to have you tell me what you know,” Mary 
began, but the waiter intervened. When they were again 
alone King resumed: 

“I don’t know anything more than was brought out at 
the trial, and that was all reviewed to-day. Lorrin was 
a minor employee, an outside collector, and I never saw 
him at the office or anywhere else, for that matter. I was 
too busy to attend the trial and it had no interest for me. 
But don’t let’s talk of him any more, Mary! I hope for 
his own sake that the poor devil got away safely, for he 
looked as though he had been punished enough, but let’s 
drop him!” 

“You’re quite sure he is guilty?” Mary disregarded 
his protest. 

“Sure? Good Heavens, yes! J. W. never makes a 
mistake. Why do you persist in discussing him, dear?” 

“Because I know he is innocent!” Mary straightened. 
“A terrible injustice has been done him and he must be 


LIBERATION 


90 

exonerated! You want to make amends for your attitude 
last night, you say that you will do anything to win me 
back? There is only one way, and I cannot promise 
that it will make me care again, for I can’t compel love, 
Wesley, but you will at least regain my friendship, my 
respect. You must help to prove his innocence!” 

“I?” King ejaculated. “Dear, you’re asking the im¬ 
possible! What on earth could I do?” 

“You were associated in the same office with him, 
whether you ever saw him or not,” she observed. “You 
knew practically everything connected with it and you 
were in a position to get at the true facts; you still are! 
You can go to Mr. Wharton-” 

“It’s out of the question!” he interrupted. “Dear, 
can’t you understand? The case is over, finished! 
Whether Lorrin is innocent or guilty he was convicted in 
open court by an honest jury and the matter is closed! 
J. W. himself could do nothing; he turned the fellow over 
to the law and there his responsibility, his right to inter¬ 
fere, ceased. It is too late to take any steps now, even 
if anything could be done.” 

“Not if other evidence were discovered which proved 
Lorrin didn’t commit that forgery?” Mary asked. “You 
could investigate now if you t wished; you could renew 
your acquaintance with Mr. Wharton’s associates and try 
to find the guilty man. Wesley, I’m convinced that 
Lorrin is innocent; if you refuse to help prove it, if you 
are willing to let this man live out his life under the shame 
of a crime he didn’t commit without in common justice 
making an effort to right the wrong that has been done 
him, I shall know that I was deceived indeed in you! The 
man I thought you were when I gave my heart to you 



AN ULTIMATUM 


9 i 

would have seen the innocence in that man’s face and he 
would have championed him without hesitation!” 

“But, my darling, you are asking something beyond my 
power or any one’s!” he groaned. “How could I set 
about such an absurd thing? Absurd even if there might 
have been a miscarriage of justice, for two years have 
passed and it is all practically forgotten. I’ll find Lorrin 
if I can, help him to get clear of the country, give him 
a fresh start, but I can’t do anything more!” 

“Very well.” Mary gathered up her gloves. “I came 
to see if, after all, my judgment of you last night was 
too hasty, but I am satisfied.” 

“Good God! You can’t mean it!” He leaned forward 
in the light of the swaying lanterns and she saw that his 
face was pinched and gray. “You can’t leave me like 
this! It isn’t the end! I can’t live without you, Mary, 
I’ll do anything-” 

“Then prove George Lorrin innocent of this crime!” 
Mary looked straight into his eyes. “Find the man who 
did commit that forgery and then come to me. If you 
don’t I shall never look upon your face again!” 



CHAPTER IX 


EYES OF SUSPICION 

I T seemed to the man who trudged along the country 
road with his waterproof bundle an hour before the 
dawn that morning that he must be caught again 
in the meshes of that familiar dream which had come to 
him so often, in so many guises. To be sure, it had never 
before held a beautiful girl, a strange elopement and a 
long motor ride, with the wheel guided by hostile hands, 
but it must be the same chimera, the complex by day, the 
obsession of his subconsciousness by night—Escape! 
Freedom! 

This dream had been more prosaic in its manifesta¬ 
tions before; he swam the great river, or clung precari¬ 
ously beneath freight cars, or fought his way through 
endless miles of tangled woods and thorny underbrush, 
but always, just when liberty was in sight, a hideous gong 
clashed and clanged in his ears and he awoke to soul¬ 
crushing reality. He had never gotten as far as this be¬ 
fore—why didn’t he wake? 

He was drenched to the skin, cramped and aching in 
every joint, from the long ride in the car, exhausted 
mentally and physically by the crisis through which he 
had passed, and a strange, light-headed exaltation per¬ 
vaded him. He wanted desperately to run, and shout, and 
sing, and yet a drunken lethargy held him in leash and 
he reeled slightly as he walked. 

92 


EYES OF SUSPICION 


93 


The soughing of the night wind among the great trees, 
the fresh aromatic scent of the wet woodlands and the 
cluster of lights, glistening far ahead to lend him a blessed 
sense of isolation, were all too potent, too sentient, not 
to force their reality upon him, however, and at last a 
measure of sanity returned to him. He had escaped, he 
was free and now he must guard against recapture! 

Dared he enter the town before morning? It would 
be an hour or two before dawn, he guessed. Yet with 
his shorn head and prison pallor dare he enter it in day¬ 
light? The dark outline of a farmhouse loomed near and 
he sat down on a sodden log by the roadside to con¬ 
sider. One thing was certain; he could go nowhere 
among men, he dared not sleep with the bundle of con¬ 
vict clothes in his possession and yet it must not be re¬ 
linquished until the purpose to which he had vowed to put 
it had been achieved. 

He must hide it somewhere until he could with safety 
return for it; the waterproof covering would fortunately 
keep it free from damp and mildew for a few days at 
least. In order to find a place of concealment for it, how¬ 
ever, he must wait till dawn, so no choice remained to 
him. Fortunately the cap which he had taken from 
Wesley King had, with the sweatband removed, stretched 
in the rain so that he could pull it well down over his 
betrayingly, close-cropped head, and as soon as the cloth¬ 
ing shops opened he would procure a complete new out¬ 
fit. Then he must have food and rest and after that ? 

But his tired brain refused to consider the future. 
Luck had been with him so far, luck and the divine kind¬ 
ness and pity of a woman! It wasn't so much the mate¬ 
rial aid she had rendered him, vital as it had been, but the 
fact that she had believed in him! Only one other per- 


94 


LIBERATION 


son in all the world had faith in his innocence and she— 
God bless her—was prejudiced by the oldest and surest 
instinct on earth; but this girl, a stranger, had taken him 
in under the most terrible of circumstances and, listening 
to his appeal, was convinced that he was guiltless by his 
mere word! 

Surely there could not be another like her in all the 
world! It was easy to see that she had been gently 
reared, as carefully kept from all knowledge of the sin 
and suffering in the everyday life about her as though 
she had been immured in a convent, and yet her instinct 
had been true, her sympathies as warm, and as unques- 
tioningly given, as if she had had far greater experience. 

How could she have come to marry such a cad as 
that fellow to whom she had given herself! What in¬ 
fatuation could have so blinded her and how long would 
it be before she realized her bitter mistake? Wesley 
King had helped him, Lorrin admitted that fact freely 
to himself; that change of apparel had been made at a 
crucial moment and his escape would have been more than 
doubtful if he had not had that timely lift upon the way, 
but King's aid in both matters had been enforced, and 
he had betrayed to the girl herself such an ugly, almost 
abusive mood that Lorrin feared more for her future 
than for his own. 

She was too unutterably sweet and good to have given 
herself to a brute like that—and he had been a party to 
it! He had been a witness to the ceremony that he felt 
with a sense of premonition must bring her only sorrow. 
It couldn't be helped now, but if ever in the future he 
might be of service to her- 

He! Lorrin struck the log upon which he sat and a 
little smile of derision curled his grimly set lips. He, 



EYES OF SUSPICION 


95 

an escaped convict, a man with a price upon him, dead or 
alive! What service could he ever render to a girl like 
that? Even if he managed to remain at liberty he must 
go far away and perhaps keep moving with that shadow 
always just behind; the friendship of women of gentle 
birth must be forever denied him, the companionship of 
men who were worth while must be shunned because of 
the disgrace which would be hanging over him again 
till the end of his days! 

But he was free! Lorrin lifted his head and saw that 
the sky was lightening, the dawn coming. Soon he would 
be able to see, to find a hiding-place for that bundle he 
had dropped behind the log, and then he must be going 
on. 

Food and rest! If only he might go to the one place in 
all the world he longed to be, just for one single hour! 
Not for the material comfort, but to see and talk with 
the one who had never doubted, to feel the mother-arms 
about him as though he were a little boy again! 

Lorrin drew his wet sleeve across his eyes and then 
resolutely straightened. For her sake, more than his 
own, he must keep away from the house in which he had 
been born and the gentle soul who lived there waiting and 
hoping for his ultimate vindication, but somehow, at 
least, he must get word to her. 

Dare he write? No letters would be intercepted, he 
knew, unless the police enlisted the cooperation of the 
postal authorities which would be unusual in the case of 
a man convicted of such a comparatively unimportant 
crime. If he wrote directly to his mother, however, he 
might incriminate her in some way and the servants could 
be trusted implicitly. There was old John Thomas, the 
butler; he was shrewd and clever, he would read between 


LIBERATION 


9 6 

the lines, but he wouldn’t know the stamp trick, that 
clever means of communication which a former convict 
had taught him and then, on having served his time, had 
gone to explain to Lorrin’s mother. If he could get a 
note to John Thomas, which the latter would know came 
from him, and would take it to his mistress. . . . 

But that must come later. It was light enough now for 
his immediate purpose, for the rosy streaks in the sky 
heralded the rise of the sun, and it would not do for 
him to be seen prowling about in full day. 

George Lorrin rose, took up his bundle and started off 
down the road. He had intended to keep straight on past 
the farmhouse, whose vague outline had loomed in the 
darkness, but on approaching it he saw that it was in the 
last stages of dilapidation and apparently long untenanted. 
The roof sagged, the broken shutters revealed windows 
from which the panes of glass had fallen, the door swung 
idly on its hinges and tangled undergrowth grew high all 
about it. 

No other habitation was visible and after a moment’s 
hesitation Lorrin pushed open the creaking gate and made 
his way up the moss-grown path to the side of the house 
where an ancient, covered well stood veiled in a scarlet, 
trumpet vine. 

The bucket had fallen apart, the rope disintegrated into 
a few gray strands, still adhering to the rusted windlass, 
but a little spring bubbled from a rocky nook between two 
dying trees near by, and here he quenched his thirst. 

Then another idea came to him and, prying loose two 
or three of the stones, he returned to the well and dropped 
them down. They fell, ricocheting from side to side, to 
land with a dull, echoing thud at the bottom; the well 
was dry! 


EYES OF SUSPICION 


97 

Yet if he dropped his bundle down there, how could he 
recover it? He glanced toward the old barn and out¬ 
buildings fast falling into decay then toward the house, 
and all at once an unaccountable inward panic seized him. 
Those vacant windows, like sightless eyes, seemed some¬ 
how to reveal shadows lurking within, shadows that 
watched him stealthily, biding their time! Did something 
move there, behind the barn ? Was it only the wind that 
had opened the door wider, only the wind that murmured 
strange sounds down the dismantled chimney and under 
the tumbling eaves? 

Without giving himself time to think, Lorrin lifted 
the waterproof bundle and dropped it over the well- 
curb, waiting only to hear its soft, limp impact at the 
bottom and then he turned and fled incontinently. Only 
when he had scrambled through the broken fence, leaped 
across the road and cowered down in the fragrant un¬ 
derbrush, still soaked with raindrops that glistened in the 
sun’s first rays, did he regain partial command of his 
jangling nerves. 

What a fool he had been to run from shadows in a 
deserted house! Why had that sudden, treacherous feel¬ 
ing of overpowering terror mastered him, robbing him of 
self-control, even of the ability to think coherently? Had 
the two years of imprisonment done this to him? Was 
he never to be sure of himself again? Must he look 
forward to recurring seizures of this hideous moral 
cowardice? These tormenting thoughts thronged his 
brain as he crouched there, shivering with self-disgust, 
and something more, a nameless fear of the days to come. 

He was innocent, yet what if his nerve failed him and 
in sheer funk he should betray himself? Better, infinitely 
better, to end it all now than to know the brief delusion of 


LIBERATION 


98 

freedom and then be ignominiously dragged back to end- 
less days and nights of living horror! 

But, as swiftly as the black mood had descended it 
lifted from him, and Lorrin rose, shaking himself like a 
wet dog. This was nothing but the reaction from the 
racking strain of the last twelve hours and the need of 
sustenance and relaxation in his lowered physical condi¬ 
tion. He might have expected it and he would be on 
guard against it in the future! He was like a kid un¬ 
used to being out alone and frightened by the mere aspect 
of the abandoned house, but he’d prove to himself that 
those two years of being buried alive hadn’t made him any 
less a man; he’d put himself to the test! Resolutely he 
pulled his cap farther down over his head and set out for 
the town. 

The sun was well up when he reached it and with a 
brisk, preoccupied air strode down the principal street 
past churches and residences to the region of stores and 
banks and offices. The community was still for the most 
part asleep, however, for, although, here and there house¬ 
holds were stirring and shops were being opened that their 
goods might be displayed, no one paid any attention to 
him. To be sure, a youth mowing a lawn stopped and 
stared, and a woman hanging out clothes paused with up¬ 
lifted arms to give him a passing glance, but he told him¬ 
self that it was only idle curiosity at seeing a stranger 
abroad at such an hour and dressed in such ridiculously 
ill-fitting clothes. 

When he reached one of the main street-crossings his 
first hazard came, for, advancing to meet him, he beheld 
a stout blue-coated figure whose general appearance was 
all too familiar to him. A policeman! For a single, 
sickening minute he felt his knees quivering beneath him 


EYES OF SUSPICION 


99 

and a cold sweat break out on his forehead while his 
brain whirled with that feeling of blind panic which had 
come over him in the yard of the deserted house, but by 
sheer force of will he controlled it and walked forward 
without hesitating. 

Had the alarm for him reached Bridgeport? Was it 
already known that he had been driven in this direction 
in a motor-car, and a description gone out of the clothes 
in which he had appeared at the parsonage ? Was this— 
the end? 

The officer was certainly looking at him with sharp 
scrutiny, he seemed to be advancing at a quickened pace 
and Lorrin could feel his eyes upon him, could almost 
feel the cold clamp of the handcuffs closing about his 
wrist. The fellow was within a few feet of him, they 
were abreast! 

With a desperate effort Lorrin raised his eyes and his 
lips parted in an off-hand grin. 

“H’lo, cap!” Was that his own voice, that careless 
cheerful tone? Had he gotten away with it? 

The officer nodded, the sleepy eyes twinkling in his 
wide, good-humored countenance, and in another moment 
his heavy footsteps, plodding steadily on the last round 
of his night’s beat, receded up the street behind. 

Lorrin could feel himself reeling giddily. He’d made 
it! He’d passed the first hard test! This particular 
guardian of the law might have been as stupid as he was 
tired, but it was evident that the alarm could not have 
reached the vicinity. 

It would, though, when the later editions of the morn¬ 
ing dailies arrived from the greater metropolis, and with 
this thought Lorrin turned down a narrow side-street 
that seemed to be lined with a variety of cheap shops, 


IOO 


LIBERATION 


most of which were open by now. A change of outer 
clothing, ink and writing-paper of the commonest and 
least easily traceable grade, solid food! 

He paused, for from a small, white-fronted restaurant 
of the quick-lunch type a delicious aroma issued which 
awoke an almost irresistible craving. Coffee, real coffee! 

The window was piled with fly-specked fruit and trays 
of stale and crumbling pastry, and the oily-haired man 
who appeared in the doorway wore an apron which had 
obviously seen much kitchen service, but Lorrin almost 
sprang forward, only to catch himself up with a jerk. 

He had money, two hundred dollars—but in two one- 
hundred-dollar bills! If he in his rain-soaked clothes, 
that so evidently had belonged to somebody else, were 
to proffer one of these in payment for a cheap meal the 
lowering proprietor of the establishment would in all 
probability call for the police! Already the man was eye¬ 
ing him with a sullen gaze in which he thought he read 
growing suspicion. Suspicion of what? Could he detect 
the prison pallor ? 

To linger was only to make his position more difficult, 
to turn again and go on after starting to enter would 
perhaps make the fellow remember him when the news 
of his escape should be sent broadcast! He must make 
some excuse. . . . 

Brushing past the man in the doorway Lorrin stifled 
the craving that was making him almost faint and ad¬ 
vanced to the little tobacco stand. Running his eye hastily 
over its dusty contents, he asked in a low, purposely rough 
tone for a brand of cigarettes that was not in evidence 
and then, refusing the proprietor’s offer of others as 
good, he shrugged and sauntered out, continuing on down 
the street. He heard the man come to the door behind 


EYES OF SUSPICION 


IOI 


him again and was conscious of those beady eyes boring 
between his shoulder blades as he fought to overcome the 
instinct to run. 

That boy with the lawn mower; why had he stared so, 
and the woman, and now this restaurant keeper? Did 
they take him for a thief in these clothes, would the 
first person he approached read his secret? 

Miserably he continued on until an array of garments 
with fluttering tags, hanging in a row before the entrance 
of a tiny store, brought him up short. An outfit would 
be his largest expenditure and was also the most urgent 
of his needs and perhaps the shopkeeper would ask no 
questions if he offered some explanation in advance—his 
hands were toil-worn even if his face was pale—many 
artisans could boast hundred-dollar bills these days. . . . 

“Nice new suit, mister, swell summer serge?” A 
wheedling voice sounded at his elbow and he turned to 
find a little old man with a tobacco-stained gray beard 
pawing his sleeve. “Right from the fact’ry, Pm telling 
you, and a bargain! You outgrown them clothes you 
got on and I buy ’em off you if you want, for a cousin 
I got that’s in the hand-me-downs.” 

He winked shrewdly and on an impulse Lorrin fol¬ 
lowed him into the shop. A change was soon effected, a 
bargain struck for the drenched suit—from which Lorrin 
carefully cut the tailor’s tab while the shopkeeper was 
delving into his stock—and then with considerable trep¬ 
idation the hundred-dollar bill was offered. 

“Tst! tst!” The little old man’s eyes narrowed. “Such 
a rich man as you should ought to take a elegant coat to 
go with that suit! I got it just what you want, a niftick 
gray tweedene with almost a half lining! I don’t sell it, I 
give it away for eighteen dollar-” 



102 


LIBERATION 


“Let’s see it!” Lorrin interrupted in an agony of im¬ 
patience. “I guess I do need it, but that’s all and don’t 
forget my change! It isn’t often I can save that much 
out of my wages for clothes and a good time!” 

Three minutes later he walked out of the shop com¬ 
pletely transformed in appearance but with a growing 
unrest that made his heart beat crazily and sent the blood 
pounding in his ears. There was a fresh roll of small bills 
and some silver in his pocket in addition to the other 
hundred, but he was under no illusions as to what that 
rascally old shopkeeper thought! He was in his doorway 
now, staring suspiciously after him as that restaurant 
owner had stared. In spite of his changed attire, was 
he still a marked man ? 

He must get out of the town again at the earliest oppor¬ 
tunity but first there remained that note to the little mother 
who waited in Brinckerhof Square. By now she would 
know of his escape, for the brutes of police would have 
broken it to her none too gently, and she must be in the 
throes of a torment of anxiety. Every hour counted to¬ 
ward relieving her suspense, and he would put a special 
stamp on that letter, as well as two one-cent ones. That 
would give him quite a little space, besides. . . . 

Purchasing a cheap writing-pad, ink-pencil and package 
of envelopes at a stationer’s, he found his way at last to 
an eating-house and there, while he consumed four cups 
of rank black coffee, and a prodigious amount of ham 
and eggs, he penned a letter in a carefully disguised 
hand. 

“Friend John Thomas: 

“Thought I’d drop you a line to say that I’m out 

of my last job but doing all right and hope to have 


EYES OF SUSPICION 


103 

another soon. My health is fine and I’ve got quite 
a little put by, so don’t worry about me. How are 
all the folks? I hope to hear from them soon. 
Sorry I won’t be coming to New York for a while, 
but prospects are too good here. Take good care of 
yourself and all. Regards from y’rs truly, 

“Tyke.” 

Surely John Thomas would recall the days when he had 
observed to the curly-haired young mischief-maker of 
the household: “Eh, but you’re a gay young tyke, you! 
A troublesome young tyke, as I live!” Surely, even if he 
were puzzled, he would show the letter to his mistress— 
together with its envelope! 

On the latter Lorrin expended much time—so much so 
that when the waitress paused behind his chair for the 
third effort to hand him his meal check he jumped guiltily 
and covered his missive with a shaking hand. 

He had addressed it to “Mr. John Thomas Quinn, 18 
Brinckerhof Square, New York City,” in a hand so 
tremulous that it might well have been palsied from age, 
but in the upper right corner, where it would presently be 
completely concealed by the two one-cent stamps and the 
special, he had penned a message in infinitesimal script: 

“Have courage. Out of danger. Address here 
General Delivery James Brown. All will be well. Thank 
lady called Mary. You know I am innocent!” 


CHAPTER X 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 

I T was after sunset that afternoon, when twilight was 
merging into dusk, that a solitary figure in a “niftick” 
gray top-coat and a soft, straw hat that remotely re¬ 
sembled Panama, dragged wearily along the road till he 
came to the creaking gate of the deserted farmhouse once 
more. 

Lorrin had come back! Nowhere in all Bridgeport had 
he dared rest; for after the waitress had looked at him 
with such unconcealed curiosity and speculation it had 
seemed to him that everywhere he stopped he encountered 
greater and more open suspicion, and the thought of rest, 
even in the meanest and most sordid of lodging-houses, 
became an impossibility. It must be the open country for 
him until he could hope for a reply to his letter, and then 
he must go as far as his remaining capital would take 
him—but that bundle must go too! 

He had returned to watch over the place where it was 
concealed, much as a malefactor haunts the scene of his 
misdeeds. In that deserted house alone could he find 
rest, there where he had known that first wave of stark, 
unreasoning terror before he had exposed himself to that 
battery of suspicious eyes in the town. Here, where no 
other human presence had manifested itself for years, he 
might for a time at least banish the horror that dogged 
him! 

It would return a hundredfold he knew, in the days to 
104 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 


105 

come, for the hue and cry had been confined to a com¬ 
paratively small radius about the prison: now it would 
spread state-wide, throughout the country, and there 
would presently be no safe place for him to lay his head! 

Somehow, it didn’t matter. He was dog-tired, semi- 
drugged for lack of sleep and he asked only to rest for 
to-night; to sink into oblivion with the blessed conscious¬ 
ness that he was not penned in with hundreds of other 
desperate, despairing souls, to wake again in freedom! 

Lorrin hastened his lagging steps as he went up the 
path and straight in at the door. The floor groaned and 
crackled alarmingly beneath him, paper hung in mildewed 
ribbons from the discolored walls and the staircase had 
completely fallen away, but after ascertaining that no 
ladder or even board lay below by which the second story 
might be reached, he made a thorough if hasty survey of 
the rooms about him. 

There were only four. The largest of these, perhaps 
the parlor of the bygone tenants, contained the remains 
of a dilapidated sofa; but no other vestige was there of 
furniture of any sort except a rusted, three-legged stove 
in the small, lean-to kitchen. From overhead there came 
a faint, multitudinous scurrying of small feet, a rustling 
and subdued murmur that attested to the presence of 
neighbors other than human, but Lorrin, having satisfied 
himself that otherwise he was alone, dragged the broken 
sofa in from the front room and spreading his newspaper 
upon it he opened the parcels he had carried. 

Bread and cheese and cold meat, soap and matches 
and candles came to view. The last articles would be 
useless to him after all, he thought regretfully as he 
glanced toward the two windows, their shutters flapping 
drearily against the house in the night breeze; he dared 





io6 


LIBERATION 


not show a light lest a possible passer-by stop to investi¬ 
gate. Darkness was descending fast, and he ate a hurried 
meal, then deposited his provisions on a high shelf, 
to protect them from the advent of the small, pat¬ 
tering marauders from above, and threw himself on the 
sofa. 

His letter by virtue of the special stamp should have 
been delivered at Brinckerhof Square by late afternoon. 
If old John Thomas had taken it to his mistress, the 
little mother must for the past hour or two have been re¬ 
lieved of her most pressing anxiety, at least for the time 
being. If she replied at once and her letter went out on 
a night mail he would find it waiting for him in the 
general delivery of the Bridgeport post office by noon 
to-morrow. But what if after all the police had enlisted 
the cooperation of the postal authorities, that letter of his 
had been intercepted and a decoy sent to him? Many a 
wanted man had been caught in such a fashion! It 
would take courage to present himself there on the mor¬ 
row but it would be worth the risk! 

When he left the restaurant that morning he had 
walked endless miles of streets, not caring to proclaim 
himself a stranger by asking the way to the post office, 
and at every turn curious, suspicious eyes had followed 
him, questioning, accusing! A mad temptation assailed 
him to shout out the truth and have it over with, and even 
now the thought of it sent a chill through his veins, but 
he had restrained it and, his mission finally accomplished, 
he had purchased his necessities and hurried out of town 
in the opposite direction. 

Then had come the fear that he would not be able to 
find the right road leading back to the deserted house, and 
through the rest of the interminable day he had tramped 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 


107 

in the weariness of desperation, fighting off sleep—the 
sleep which somehow would not come to him now! 

It was quite dark, and through a rift in the shutter of 
the broken window, near which he lay, a single star glim¬ 
mered in at him, a star like a watchful, staring eye! Was 
he never to find peace? 

From somewhere in the house a bit of plaster fell 
and Lorrin started violently, to fall back cursing his 
nerves. There was a scurrying in the walls now, a 
scratching sound over by the rusty stove. Had the other 
tenants with whom he shared this wretched hovel scented 
the food already? Their near presence seemed only to 
accentuate his solitude and, as much as he feared and 
dreaded the eyes of his fellow men—men whose every 
hand would be turned against him now and henceforward 
if they knew—he found himself longing to be within 
sound, at least, of others of his kind. 

Would sleep never come? If only, at least, he dared 
light a single candle! The darkness seemed hemming 
him in, pressing down upon him so that he could scarcely 
breathe and he twisted and turned as though striving to 
throw off its weight. There was something almost 
tangible about it, it pulsed like a living monster about him 
and he wanted to cry out, to challenge its menace. 

A board creaked suddenly and he sat up, cold sweat 
pouring from him. Surely there was some one out there 
on the porch, some one fumbling, stumbling, thumping 
the wall as if trying to find the door! Was he going 
mad? If his senses were not deceiving him, there was 
a rustling, thudding sound, and presently the broken latch 
would rattle, the door swing open! 

Any certainty would be better than this hideous wait¬ 
ing, and Lorrin sprang up, feeling his way along the wall 


io8 


LIBERATION 


to the entry and so out to the sagging little porch. In the 
eery glow which enveloped it from the starry sky he saw 
that it was deserted and the tangled garden lay still and 
ghostly before him, but the low branch of a maple had 
grown in under the porch roof and was rustling and 
thumping against it in the rising wind. 

Relieved and once more berating his treacherous nerves, 
Lorrin went back to his couch, the quick patter of little 
feet rushing before him, and he smiled grimly to himself. 
The other denizens of this rookery had discovered his 
presence at last. 

He lay listening to their timorous advance and tumultu¬ 
ous retreat at his slightest movement until he wearied of 
the silly game and his thoughts went back to the night 
before. The gentle girl who had been such an angel of 
mercy to him must be far away by now, embarked upon 
new seas. Was she happy? Had that hurried, secret 
marriage brought the fulfillment of her dreams or did 
she already regret? Her face seemed to rise before him, 
its delicate oval framed in soft, brown hair, the melting, 
hazel eyes gazing upon him, not in wary suspicion like all 
those others he had encountered, but with warm sympathy 
and pity and understanding! He would never see her 
again but never could he forget her, the sound of her 
sweet voice, the touch of her hand; life would hold that 
memory of her, while memory endured! 

Mary! How well that name suited her! Girl-woman 
of infinite compassion and tenderness and faith and cour¬ 
age ! She had come into his life at its darkest hour and 
gone out of it again before the advent of the dawn, but 
her presence seemed to remain still with him. 

What impulse had led him to give her his mother’s 
address? What vague hope that he might hear of her 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 


109 

again some time, even indirectly? Whether happiness 
came to her or sorrow he would remain in her thoughts, 
when she thought of him at all, merely as a miserable 
pariah, the victim of injustice, perhaps, but a pariah for 
all that, whose path could never again cross hers. 

Yet perhaps in her divine pity she might trouble to 
communicate with the address he had given her and get 
in touch with his mother. It might give her some small 
satisfaction to know that the efforts she had made in his 
behalf, the opposition she had faced from her husband in 
the first hours of their married life, had not been in vain. 
That was a small item of the debt he owed to her and it 
was for that he had sent to his mother the message for 
“the lady called Mary.” For that alone, Lorrin repeated 
to himself firmly. She was the wife of another man, a 
free man who could walk the earth unscathed with no 
hidden shame, however guiltless, to dog his footsteps! 

Would it never be morning? He tossed restlessly on 
the musty, creaking couch, while tiny, bright eyes watched 
him from shrouded corners and the darkness clutched 
him by the throat, but somehow he seemed no longer 
alone with the vermin who epitomized the desolation and 
decay all about him, for other faces appeared, shadowy, 
vague. Who was that fellow, scarcely more than a boy, 
with slumbrous dark eyes and a livid scar cutting across 
the hectic flush on one cheek? Why, it was Tony, of 
course! Tony, gunman and stick-up guy, who had found 
the air of the prison less salubrious than that of the 
slums and coughed his life away still proud of his record 
and standing with “the gang.” 

And this mild-faced, blinking, bald old man who smiled 
at him with such ingenuous friendliness ? That was Bill, 
the lifer; he’d killed two men, they said, but there was a 


no 


LIBERATION 


question of some mitigating wrong involved and so he 
hadn't gotten the chair. Lorrin found himself smiling 
back in the darkness and a sudden warning realization of 
the danger of this trend of thought came to him, but he 
fought in vain against the return of these companions of 
the past two years. 

They flocked about him; Mike, the yegg, Gordon, the 
embezzler, Slim Harris, the counterfeiter, Lefty Frank, 
Big Jim, “Sparks” Dolan, Kid Petersen, Williams, 
Mason. . . . 

Gradually they wavered, blurred, grew indistinct and 
were enveloped in the gloom which was weighing down 
Lorrin’s eyelids now, dulling his senses, settling upon his 
brain. He ceased to twitch and turn, his breathing grew 
deep and regular, and at last he slept. 

The stars paled, the wind died and dawn stole in at 
the windows, and still he slumbered in the oblivion of 
utter exhaustion until a sharp ray of sunlight fell athwart 
his face and he started up. Crumbling walls, a broken 
floor, dust and cobwebs and the scent of old-fashioned 
garden flowers mingling with the song of birds from the 
world outside—where was he? Then realization came, 
and with it renewed hope and courage. 

The night was past, the new day had come, and he was 
still free! There was that final ordeal to face, the claim¬ 
ing of a possible letter, and then he would strike out for 
new pastures. Free! 

Hastening out to the spring Lorrin bathed and drank 
deeply, then returned to eat sparingly of his cold food 
and wait until the sun was high overhead. By noon the 
precious message in his mother’s own beloved hand might 
be in his possession, an hour later with his bundle recov¬ 
ered from the well he might be on his way! 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 


hi 


But never had the sun traveled so slowly, never even in 
the first days of his imprisonment had time so lagged! 
The freshness of early morning gave place to a sultry, 
brooding heat, the little people of the night had retired to 
the rafters above and the birds’ songs outside subsided to 
a mere chirping as they went busily about their affairs. 
The air was so still that once the distant humming of a 
motor seemed alarmingly close but it diminished in the 
distance, and once he heard yet nearer the creak of some 
heavily laden cart but it passed on another road and his 
retreat remained undisturbed. 

Pacing the sagging floor, peering from one broken 
window after another, reading and rereading his news¬ 
paper of yesterday, Lorrin controlled his impatience and 
waited determinedly until the sun stood directly above 
before he set out. 

The town once more, busier than he had seen it in the 
early hours of yesterday; the sidelong glances, speculative, 
curious, almost expectant! Was there a new, brooding 
suspense in the air ? Lorrin would not allow his thoughts 
to dwell on it but hurried to the post office, avoiding the 
vicinity of the shops he had visited on the previous day, 
and took his place in the queue before the general delivery 
window. 

Had his letter been intercepted? Was there among 
that lounging crowd a pair of keen eyes looking for him, 
a star pinned beneath some coat to flash presently before 
his vision? 

It seemed that his turn would never come, yet all at 
once he stood before the window and gazed into a pair of 
kindly gray eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses. Somehow 
he muttered the name of “J ames Brown” and then, after 
a question or two which he could never afterward recall 


112 


LIBERATION 


answering, he found himself outside, with a thick envelope 
in his hands! For a moment he stood half dazed in the 
sunlight, waiting for a hand to fall upon his shoulder, 
an authoritative voice to sound in his ear, but none came! 
The ordeal was over! 

Thrusting the letter into his pocket without daring to 
look at the superscription, he made his way back to the 
outskirts of town once more, blind instinct leading him to 
take a circuitous route to the deserted house; but on 
reaching it he went on and doubled back through a patch 
of woodland to the rear of the ramshackle barn. 

There, crouching in the tall weeds, his eager, shaking 
fingers found the letter and drew it forth. It was 
addressed in an unknown hand and for an instant his 
heart stood still. The writing was large but curiously 
jerky and uneven, with erratic strokes as though the pen 
had not been under control; surely his mother had not 
guided it, and old John Thomas wrote in the crabbed, 
small script of his generation. Then Lorrin noted the 
two-cent stamp and two ones in the upper right comer 
and the truth came to him. Old John Thomas had 
written that letter, enlarging his hand so that he might 
take up as much space as possible on the thick layer of 
sheets within and thus account for the extra postage! 

He slit the envelope carefully at the bottom and drew 
out the contents, to read: 

“Dear Friend Tyke: 

“We were most glad to hear from you, and that 
you are well and doing all right. The folks have 
been anxious about your losing your job and they’ll 
worry till they know you’ve got another one, but I 
tell them you’re certain to better yourself and every- 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 


ii 3 

thing will turn out all right, so write again as soon 
as you can get a chance and give your address. They 
are well and want to see you some time but we’re all 
pretty busy just now; maybe later you can pay us a 
little visit. Miss Mary was here and talked about 
you. I guess she would like to hear from you, too. 

“Well, no more now. You say you got something 
put by but I enclose a little more to help till you get 
a good job. 

“Your affectionate friend, 

“John Thomas.” 

For a long moment Lorrin sat staring down at the 
missive from which had fallen a crisp, hundred-dollar 
bill. His mother was well, but anxious—he mustn’t try 
to come home —Miss Mary had been there! Why “Miss 
Mary”? Was she still keeping her marriage a secret, 
even from her own people? He had imagined that the 
elopement would have been announced almost immedi¬ 
ately. She had taken an hour from her honeymoon to 
call, she had “talked about” him, comforted his mother! 

He might have known that in her infinite kindness she 
would make a further sacrifice of her happiness, she had 
not forgotten the fugitive who had intruded in the most 
sacred hour and thrown himself upon her trust and 
compassion! But what did that guarded sentence mean ? 
—“I guess she would like to hear from you?” Surely 
she could not think that he would again inflict himself 
upon her! 

Belatedly he remembered the three stamps on the en¬ 
velope, and lighting a tiny fire of dried brush and twigs, 
well in the shelter of the barn wall, he boiled water from 
the spring in an old tin can and held it over the steam. 


LIBERATION 


114 

The stamps peeled off readily and beneath them in letters 
so fine that he could scarcely decipher them he found at 
last the message from his mother. 

“Thank God! Love, faith always. Don’t come, 
danger. Miss Greenough sure innocence, reach me 
through her Green Lodge. God keep you safe. Mother.” 

A lump welled up in Lorrin’s throat and his eyes were 
suspiciously moist as he pressed the message convulsively 
to him before consigning it with old John Thomas’ letter 
to the tiny flame and stamping all out together. The love 
and faith that had never failed him! The longing to see 
her own again lost in the desire for his safety above 
all! 

And Mary Greenough still believed in his innocence 
also!—Mary Greenough—but she was Mary King now! 
He was to reach his mother through her at Green Lodge, 
she was at home with her people! What could it mean ? 

She had eloped, married, fled through the night—and 
then gone back as though that ceremony had never taken 
place in the remote parsonage; there could be only one 
explanation of that—a quarrel, separation! 

Could it be that he had been the cause ? Lorrin sprang 
to his feet, remembering all at once the bridegroom’s 
furious opposition to the aid offered him, the breach which 
had more than once threatened during that night’s ride. 
Had the girl’s splendid, courageous championship of him, 
her determination to save him from recapture, cost her 
her chance of future happiness with the man who was 
after all of her own choosing? Had he, in return for 
her mercy, brought misery and trouble upon her? 

Gone now were the nervous fears, the sick apprehension 
born of his long confinement, the terror of searching eyes 


IN PAYMENT OF DEBT 115 

and clutching hands of the law! His course was plain 
before him though it brought him again within shadow 
of the prison walls, perhaps through prison gates them¬ 
selves. He must go back and right the wrong which he 
had caused; he owed a debt which he must pay! 


CHAPTER XI 

GEORGE LORRIN RETURNS 

M ARY reached home again after that strange din¬ 
ner with the man who was her husband too worn 
out in body and mind to think collectedly. 
Would Wesley take the chance she had offered to rehabili¬ 
tate himself in her eyes? At her ultimatum he had 
declared profusely that he would use every means possi¬ 
ble to reopen the investigation and vindicate the man she 
held to be unjustly convicted, but had he meant it? Had 
his acquiescence been merely a ruse to gain time and per¬ 
suade her to return to him? 

She didn’t know. She had seen his real self but the 
man was a stranger; she could not yet gauge his possibili¬ 
ties. Whether or not he was sincere in his promise, her 
own purpose remained unshaken. George Lorrin was 
innocent and somehow the proof should be brought to 
light! 

Letting herself wearily in at the side gate, she glanced 
up at the house. The windows of her father’s room were 
still aglow and above, at the top of the house, a single 
light showed that the faithful Susan kept vigil also. Had 
she managed to leave a side door open, or one of the 
French windows leading onto the terrace? Mary 
wondered listlessly if she must ring and be subjected to 
another scene. It could have no other ending than that 

of the morning, but she was so tired- 

“Miss Mary!” A lean hand clutched her arm and 
116 



GEORGE LORRIN RETURNS 


ii 7 

Susan stepped out from the shadow of the hedge. “It’s 
you, glory be! A fine time we’ve had of it since you left, 
but Eve the kitchen door open and maybe you can skip up 
to bed without himself being the wiser!” 

“Wait!” Mary steadied herself for a minute against 
the taller, sturdy frame of the old nurse. “You gave 
father my message?” 

“I did, but much good was it when they found you 
gone! They had a long talk, your father and mother, and 
then he went to the ’phone and called up some steamship 
offices for sailing dates. It looks like whatever you’ve 
got yourself mixed up in, they’re going to take you away 
from it, and I don’t say I’m not agreeing with them!” 
Susan added, severely. “ ’Tis like you to take some¬ 
body else’s trouble on your own shoulders without think¬ 
ing what you’re bringing on yourself, no less me! In 
cahoots with you, they think I am, and if I only was, 
maybe I’d be easier in my mind! You could be telling 
me now, lamb?” 

Mary shook her head at the persuasive tone. 

“It isn’t my secret to tell, Susan, but they won’t take 
me away anywhere; at least, not now. Don’t come to my 
room with me, father might hear. Good night, and 
thank you for waiting up for me.” 

She did not heed the dolorous sigh that followed her 
as she crept up the back stairs and into her room, but 
disrobed without a light and dropped into bed with a 
feeling of profound relief. Sleep came to her almost at 
once and in the morning when she descended to breakfast 
she was serenely mistress of her new self. 

Her mother drew her down and kissed her silently be¬ 
fore she took her own place, but her father glanced up 
and pushed aside his cup. 


n8 


LIBERATION 


“You returned some time during the night ?” he asked 
icily. “May I ask where these nocturnal wanderings 
of yours are taking you, or is that beyond the province 
of a mere father ?” 

“I went to New York yesterday afternoon,” Mary 
responded quietly. “I was detained longer than I ex¬ 
pected but I caught the ten o'clock train back. I've 
often done so* before, so it did not occur to me that you 
or mother would be worried. I shall probably be away 
quite frequently now, but I’ll try to return earlier.” 

“You will be away for quite a protracted period, my 
dear!” her father retorted. “You and your mother are 
sailing for Europe on Saturday; I shall follow.—Made¬ 
line, another cup of coffee, please.” 

Mary shook her head with a faint smile. 

“Can’t you accompany mother now ?” she asked. 
“I’m afraid she will be rather lonely, for you see I haven’t 
any intention of sailing on Saturday, or any other date 
in the near future. Was it your plan to dose the 
house ?” 

“Oh, Mary!” her mother sighed. “Your father and 
I think it is best-•” 

“Just why did you ask that question?” Charles 
Greenough demanded of his daughter. 

“Because I thought that Susan and I could take that 
old rustic studio of yours down at the end of the garden 
and turn it into a little camp for the summer.” Mary 
returned his gaze steadily. “There’s an extra store¬ 
room for books, besides your den, and it’s really quite 
habitable. Of course, if you prefer, I can take an 
apartment in town-” 

“We’ll see about this!” He left his coffee untouched 
and strode from the room, and his wife said tearfully: 




GEORGE LORRIN RETURNS 119 

“Mary, can’t you see how terribly you are worrying 
us ? I haven’t asked for your confidence, hoping that you 
would give it to us of your own free will, but we must 
know what has changed you so! What you are keeping 
from us?” 

Mary bit her lip. 

“I can’t tell you, mother, once and for all. Nothing 
has changed me, and I am doing nothing but what is 
right. I must follow my own convictions.” 

No further mention was made of the proposed trip 
abroad, but as the day wore on Mary was more and 
more conscious of the barrier that had indeed risen be¬ 
tween her and her parents. Her father’s cold, stern 
demeanor, her mother’s reproachful silence, were more 
than she could bear and when Susan asked with a sniff 
if she expected to go to the city that afternoon her 
former charge turned to her with a little break in her 
voice. 

“No, Susan, I’m waiting for a message. It may come 
any time or not for several days. Don’t you dare to be 
disappointed or hurt at me! Just try to help and maybe 
I’ll tell you everything before any of the rest!” 

The message came sooner than she had anticipated; 
late that afternoon, in fact, when she was summoned to 
the telephone. An aged, quavering voice which she did 
not at first recognize greeted her: 

“Is this Miss Mary Greenough? I’m John Thomas, 
miss, the butler where you called yesterday afternoon.” 

“Oh, yes!” Mary cried hastily, aware that her father 
had come to the door of his study and was listening 
judicially. “I understand perfectly. Please go on!” 

“We’ve had a letter from Bridgeport, miss. I’m tele¬ 
phoning from the drugstore booth at the corner of the 


120 


LIBERATION 


square for our wires mayn’t be—be in good condition. 
Everything’s all right and safe and well! The lady you 
called on thought you’d like to know.” 

“Oh, I’m glad! Glad!” Mary cried. “Please say that 
if there is anything that I can do-” 

“That’s just it, miss.” The old voice had steadied, 
but now it hesitated. “A reply was sent with your mes¬ 
sage in it and the lady you called on said also that any 
communication might be made to her through you. She 
wanted me to tell you this, miss.” 

“That is splendid! She will hear from me the in¬ 
stant I receive any word,” responded Mary. “Shall I 
ask for you?” 

There was a pause, and Charles Greenough took a 
determined step or two forward but his daughter did not 
turn her head. It was evident the butler realized that the 
name “Lorrin” would not be a discreet one now to men¬ 
tion over the wire from the neighborhood of the prison, 
for after a moment he spoke again. 

“Before her marriage the lady was a Miss Stanley; 
perhaps you’d know her best under that name, miss ?” 

“Thanks, I’m quite sure I should. You’ll explain that 
to her, please, and tell her I hope to see her soon? 
Good-by.” 

Mary turned and went upstairs as though unaware of 
her father’s consciously compelling gaze, but in her room 
she found Susan ostensibly laying out her gown for din¬ 
ner but patently waiting, and on an impulse she spoke: 

“Susan, if Miss Stanley calls up she’s a friend of mine 
and if she should come to see me let me know at once. 
She’s very lovely, not old but with white hair, and she’s 
been through a great deal of trouble. I want to do any¬ 
thing for her I can.” 



GEORGE LORRIN RETURNS 121 

The sharp features brightened visibly. 

“A lady?” she remarked. “And here I was thinking 
all the time maybe ’twas some young man was at the 
bottom of all this! I’m not saying there shouldn’t be 
at your age, especially since you give that Mr. King the 
go-by, like your folks wanted you should, but it’s relieved 
I am!” 

“I may see Mr. King again, or—or another young man, 
but they won’t either of them come to the house,” Mary 
said slowly, weighing each word. “I’m trusting you, 
Susan, and you promised to help me.” 

“I don’t know whether I did or no, but I will!” The 
old nurse paused at the door. “You’ll not be keeping 
them waiting for dinner?” 

The meal progressed in a cloud of portentous silence 
and at its conclusion Mary threw a light wrap about her 
shoulders and went out into the garden. Dusk had 
brought with it a heavy dew and a mist, rising from the 
river, which obscured the road beyond the gates and 
hung veil-like about the trees and shrubbery. 

The girl paced slowly up and down the Rose Walk 
with its arches of ramblers curved overhead and the tangle 
of bushes on either hand bowed beneath the weight of 
their fragrant burden in the zenith of their bloom. How 
peaceful it all was! Could it be that only two nights ago 
the air was rent with the clamor of the prison bell, the 
roads ablaze with the lights of the man-hunters? Where 
was he now? He had still been in Bridgeport and safe 
when he wrote to his mother but that must have been the 
day before. Would her reply reach him, and would a 
message come here from him ? 

Her aimless steps had taken her almost to the side gate 
and it seemed to her that the latch clicked softly. Could 


122 


LIBERATION 


it be Wesley? Mary paused, listening. Surely he would 
not come to her so soon for he could have made little 
progress in a day and he must know that no lying evasions 
would appease her now. Ordinary guests of the house 
would use the great entrance gates—was that a quiet, 
stealthy step? 

Then a tall, shadowy figure appeared, halted at sight of 
her slender white-clad one, and advanced once more, 
slowly, steadily! Somehow, before he came close enough 
for her to distinguish his features, Mary knew, and a soft 
little cry escaped her as she went to meet him with out¬ 
stretched hand. 

'‘You!” she breathed. “Ah, but you should not have 
come! It isn’t safe!” 

“I had to come,” George Lorrin responded quietly as 
their hands met. “I’ve been in communication with my 
mother and she told me that you had called on her yes¬ 
terday, told her that you believed in my innocence. Thank 
you for that! It means more to me than all the rest that 
you have done!” 

“I do believe in you, but why have you come ?” Mary 
glanced fearfully over her shoulder, although their figures 
were shrouded in impenetrable mist, and even the lights 
of the house showed only in a dim, glowing haze. “Don’t 
you know that the search for you is being pressed more 
than ever since the local excitement has died down? 
Every mile between you and the prison down there meant 
a greater chance and you have thrown them all away!” 

“I would throw away the last chance of all if I thought 
that I could undo the harm I’m afraid I’ve caused.” He 
spoke in a low, hurried tone. “My mother told me some¬ 
thing else in her letter; she said that I might get in touch 
with her through Miss Greenough, at Green Lodge. For- 


GEORGE LORRIN RETURNS 


123 

give me for intruding again on your affairs but I thought 
you must be far away by now on your honeymoon; that 
your people would know’ of your marriage. I was 
afraid there was something wrong between you and— 
and your husband, and that perhaps your great kindness 
to me had been the reason for it. I have come back to 
offer myself to you, to be of service in any way that I 
can! I will go back down there, give myself up willingly 
if it will bring any peace and happiness to you-” 

‘‘Oh, stop! Stop!” Mary exclaimed softly. “I left my 
husband an hour after you had started on alone, at the 
very first village we came to! It wasn’t because of his 
treatment of you or even of me, but because of the revela¬ 
tion of his true character that night! I—I can’t talk 
about it much, for I bear his name, if it is only in secret, 
but I found out then that he wasn’t the man I thought! 
I saw something in his face that made me realize in a 
flash how I had been deceived in him, and I couldn’t go 
on! You thought that we had quarreled about you ? You 
came back and risked being taken because of me?” 

“You risked everything to help me,” Lorrin said 
simply. “I came to try to repay in part my indebtedness 
to you.” 

“You owe me nothing except to save yourself!” Mary 
cried, unconscious of the fact that she had laid her hand 
upon his arm in her earnestness. “There are plain¬ 
clothes men now in every sort of vehicle patrolling the 
country for miles around! I wonder that you reached 
here without discovery! Oh, it was rash, quixotic of you, 
but—but splendid! You see, you haven’t hurt me or 
brought me any unhappiness; rather, you’ve saved me 
from it and I ought to thank you, for perhaps if you 
hadn’t come to me that night and I forced Wesley to take 



124 


LIBERATION 


you along with us I might not have known what he really 
was in time to—to come home!” 

“You mean this?” Lorrin asked. “You are not saying 
it just to be kind?” 

Before Mary could reply a strangled, half-scandalized 
whisper came from the mist just behind her. 

“Miss Mary! For the love of the saints, take your 
young man down back of the garden towards the glen and 
I’ll let you know when you can slip into the house! Your 
father’s looking for you! That long-nosed divil from 
Red Top has been here and tould him something, and he’s 
all but had a sthroke over it! Get along, the two o’ ye!” 

Mary needed no second urging, but her grasp tightened 
on Lorrin’s arm and she drew him lightly but sure-foot- 
edly along the path which led to the long closed, rustic 
studio of which she had spoken only that morning. 

The “long-nosed devil” could be none other than their 
neighbor Samuel Rathbun from the brick house on the 
knoll—and Rathbun had been the first to stop them out¬ 
side the gates the night Wesley King drove Lorrin to 
temporary safety and freedom, and her to the bondage 
of disillusioned wifehood! 



CHAPTER XII 


THE SHADOWED FACE 

I ORRIN permitted Mary to lead him in silence 
until the path left the garden and dwindled away in 
a group of tall trees where the ground sloped 
sharply downward into a sort of little ravine. Here, 
although it was darker, the mist had not penetrated, and 
just as the sound of a stream rushing over stones came 
to his ears he saw upon the edge of the bank the low 
outlines of a sort of miniature bungalow with a roof that 
swooped down over a tiny porch. Only when they reached 
it did Mary relinquish her hold upon his arm, to sink 
down panting on the steps. 

“Mrs. King—Miss Mary!” Lorrin began in confusion. 
“Let me leave you here! Whoever that was who warned 
you then will come when it is safe for you to return to the 
house and if I were found here it would only mean more 
trouble for you.” 

“No! Sit down, please!” Mary exclaimed. “That was 
Susan, my old nurse, and we can trust her if we can 
anybody on earth! She doesn’t know anything yet, ex¬ 
cept that I won’t tell my parents where I was night before 
last or yesterday when I went to town, but she’s willing 
to lie for me and help me in any way she can. That man 
who has called on father must have been the first who 
challenged us when we started for—for the minister’s, 
do you remember? He knew both Wesley and me, of 
125 


126 


LIBERATION 


course, and IT 1 simply say you were a friend of Wesley, 
if I’m cornered. That isn’t as important as the fact that 
you must stay here now, for a while at least. You might 
as well give yourself up at once as to attempt to get 
safely away just now!” 

“It doesn’t matter about me!” Lorrin declared. “I 
have brought you only trouble and you will know noth¬ 
ing else till I am far away—or back behind those walls! 
I must take my chance—don’t you see that if I am taken, 
it mustn’t be here?” 

“You shan’t be taken at all!” Mary asserted. “You’re 
going to hide here, right in this old studio of my father’s, 
that no one has even thought of for years! I’ll take 
messages to your mother, she might even come and see 
you if I can arrange it, and you’ll be safer than any¬ 
where else until they’ve decided that you’ve gone scot- 
free!” 

“I can’t!” Lorrin cried hoarsely. “I can’t let you run 
this horrible risk! I should never forgive myself! Good- 
by, I-” 

“All right, leave me, then!” she exclaimed, for an in¬ 
spiration had come born of her desperate desire to pro¬ 
tect him. “You’ll be recaptured, you haven’t a chance, 
and do you know what that will mean—to me?” 

“ ‘To you’ ?” he repeated, dazed at the sudden note of 
injury in her tone. 

“It will mean that every step of yours, from the 
moment of your escape, will be traced, that’s inevitable, 
it always happens! The whole truth will come out about 
my elopement and my people will insist that I go to my 
husband to avoid scandal! Don’t you see?” Mary 
pleaded. “If you bring that upon me it will be the only 
harm you have ever done!” 


THE SHADOWED FACE 


127 

“Great Heavens!” groaned Lorrin, dropping down upon 
the step beside her. “I should never have returned, but 
my mother’s message-” 

“I told her to tell you to communicate with her through 
me,” interrupted Mary softly. “I warned her that you 
mustn’t go to your home, that I was afraid Wesley would 
betray you but perhaps I did him an injustice, after all, 
for he has promised to do everything to help prove your 
innocence, since he’s convinced that I believe in it.” 

“He has promised—what!” Lorrin stared. 

“To try to find the real forger,” she explained. “You 
see, your mother told me all about the case yesterday, 
showed me the clippings and described how you came to 
be accused. I realized that I’d heard Mr. Wharton’s 
name mentioned by Wesley himself, and what do you 
think? He was actually associated with Mr. Wharton 
at the time the whole terrible affair happened! Isn’t it 
strange ?” 

There was a pause and then Lorrin said slowly as 
though to himself: 

“Very—strange! I didn’t recognize him, and his name 
wasn’t familiar when I heard it first, at the parsonage.” 

“Yours was to him, though! I saw the way he looked 
at you when you had signed as witness to—to the cere¬ 
mony, and after I left your mother yesterday I met 
him.” 

She told of King’s association with the man whose 
name had been forged and of his excuse for not having 
attended the trial and added: 

“You see, that was why he didn’t recognize you; he’d 
never seen you in the office and he’d almost forgotten 
about the case. He is very contrite about the way he 
behaved that night, very anxious to make amends, and 


128 LIBERATION 

he has promised to reopen the investigation among his old 
friends and associates on Mr. Wharton’s staff.” 

“That is—kind of him.” Lorrin spoke with an effort. 
“I’m afraid he will be unable to do anything, though. I 
cannot understand why he should undertake it, why his 
attitude should have changed so suddenly!” 

“Well, it did!” Mary remarked hastily, adding: 
“How did you ever dare write openly to your mother 
from Bridgeport?” 

“I didn’t; I wrote to our old butler, John Thomas, 
signing a nickname he used to call me as a little fellow, 
and he took the letter to her. She found the hidden 
message.” 

“ ‘A hidden message’!” the girl repeated. “Oh, tell 
me!” 

“I learned it down there.” He nodded in the direction 
of the prison. “A fellow convict taught me when I first 
came and when his sentence expired I paid him to go to 
my mother and explain it to her. You see, all incoming 
and outgoing letters are opened and read by the chaplain, 
but he doesn’t think to steam off the stamps and see what 
is written beneath them! That’s how my mother got 
word to me of your visit and warning; when John 
Thomas replied to my letter she added her message under 
the stamps!” 

“I see! John Thomas is a splendid, faithful old soul, 
isn’t he? He telephoned to me this afternoon.” Mary 
recounted the brief conversation and scarcely had she 
finished when heavy but cautious footsteps thudded on 
the soft ground under the trees and Susan’s rasping 
whisper came to their ears : 

“Wisht! Is it there you are, Miss Mary? If I put 
me foot down in the glen-” 



THE SHADOWED FACE 


129 

“Here, Susan, on the steps of the studio,” Mary called 
softly, with her hand again on Lorrin’s arm as he would 
have risen. “Can you find your way? I want to ask 
you something.” 

“I can!” Susan lumbered up to them and then stopped. 
“Little you fooled me this day with your talk of an old 
lady, but I’m wishful to get you back to the house now, 
and if your gentleman friend will excuse me?” 

“Susan!” Mary interrupted. “There’s something this 
gentleman and I want to know. You heard of that con¬ 
vict who escaped the night before last?” 

“I did, the saints grant him luck!” the old woman re¬ 
sponded with an air of sudden defiance. “I’ve not seen 
hide nor hair of him, but if I did and this gentleman is 
one of them that’s thracking him down, he’d get never 
a wor-rd out of me!” 

“Why, Susan!” Mary spoke in an odd, choked tone. 
“I’m surprised at you, a law-abiding woman!” 

“That’s neither here nor there!” Susan retorted stoutly. 
“I mind my own business, but ’tis my opinion that there’s 
just as bad walking the earth free as anny that’s behind 
them bars, and some sent up, maybe, that don’t deserve 
it. ’Tis not given to mortal man to be always right in 
his judgments on the rest of the wor-rld, but no matther 
of that! Whether the la-ad was guilty or not he had 
pluck and I wish him well!” 

An inarticulate sound issued from Lorrin’s lips, but 
Mary said quickly: 

“Suppose he wasn’t guilty, Susan? Suppose a terrible 
mistake had been made and he was sent to prison because 
of what some one else had done ? Wouldn’t you give him 
more than your good wishes ? Wouldn’t you help him to 
stay free till his innocence was proved?” 


130 


LIBERATION 


“Glory be! They’d not take him again till they took 
me with him!” Susan ejaculated. Then she took a sudden 
step forward and peered down at them. “Is that what 
you’ve been doing, Miss Mary darling, these last two 
days? You said ’twas some wan in throuble that you 
wanted to help!—By the roses of Saint Elizabeth herself, 
is this—is this?” 

“This is the man who escaped, Susan,” Mary replied 
softly. “He is innocent, and he and I are trusting you!” 

“Young man!” Susan remarked solemnly. “You’re, 
not trusting a turncoat nor yet a fool and I’ll do for you 
like you were my own son that never was!” 

Lorrin stammered his thanks but Mary cut him short: 

“He can’t go now, Susan, they’re looking for him 
everywhere, and I thought we could hide him here in 
father’s old studio for a few days-” 

“We can that!” the old woman interrupted with in¬ 
stant decision. “There’s a shutter open and a window 
unfastened around the side of the big room that he can 
easy climb in now, and to-morrow I’ll be after finding the 
key to the door. You’ll come up to the house and leave 
him to me before your father comes looking for you, 
Miss Mary, and I’ll bring him back bedding from one of 
the spare rooms and a bit of supper. He’ll be all right 
till morning when we’ll see what’ll we do next!” 

So it was arranged, and after Lorrin had raised the 
window and climbed in he turned. Mary held out her 
hand to him. 

“Good night,” she said softly. “You will be safe 
here and Susan is faithful. You can rest without 
danger.” 

“I am sure of that and more than grateful,” he paused. 



THE SHADOWED FACE 


I 3 I 

“It is the danger to you that I fear! I seem to be always 
bringing it upon you, always in your debt!” 

Susan was waiting discreetly at the edge of the grove, 
but not until they had made their way through it and to 
the garden hedge did the old woman speak. 

“It’s work he’ll be wanting when we get him safe away 
and I’ve that nephew out in Dethroit with a grand little 
butcher shop-” 

'‘Susan!” Mary interrupted with a hysterical little 
gurgle, “it’s dear of you but—that was his mother’s 
butler who telephoned me this afternoon, and his mother 
is the ‘Miss Stanley’ I told you might come to see me; 
it was her maiden name.” 

Susan halted for a moment and then remarked ob¬ 
scurely : 

“So that’s how it is! I might have known!—You’ll 
go in be the side door, Miss Mary, and me be the back; 
it’s conspirators we are, no less, and we’ll not be seen 
hobnobbing together!” 

Just within the terrace door Charles Greenough con¬ 
fronted his daughter. 

“Mary, I have learned something very distressing this 
evening!” he began austerely, but his firm lips twitched 
as with pain. “You were seen driving away from this 
house two nights ago in Wesley King’s car with the man 
himself at the wheel and another beside you. That was 
the hour when the excitement was at its height over the 
escaped convict and, preposterous as such an inference is, 
the question is rife throughout the neighborhood as to the 
identity of the second man. Who was he?” 

“A friend of Mr. King, from New York,” Mary re¬ 
plied steadily. “I shall not drag his name into this affair, 


132 LIBERATION 

but Mr. King himself will vouch for what I say if you 
care to go to him. ,, 

“I need no verification of my daughter’s word from 
any one, least of all this man, King!” Greenough drew 
himself up, but added: “You were stopped later on the 
road and introduced the stranger as a guest of mine, I 
understand. What was your reason?” 

“Perhaps you did not understand correctly, father.” 
Mary’s tone was very gentle. “I introduced the stranger 
as a friend, a guest, of Mr. King as indeed he was. I met 
him then for the first time. I’ll try to give you now as 
much of an explanation as I can, but I’m afraid it will 
not satisfy you. I—I wanted very much to go to a cer¬ 
tain place that night. I called up Mr. King and asked him 
to take me; he replied that he would have to bring his 
friend along and I agreed, of course. On the way back 
from the place I had wanted to go to the car broke down, 
miles from anywhere, and Mr. King hired another and 
sent me home. He didn’t escort me, knowing of your 
prejudice against him.” 

“You telephoned this man and asked a favor of him ?” 
Her father’s voice shook. “You knew of our dis¬ 
approval of him, you had virtually promised to bring 
your acquaintance with him to an end! Mary, I am 
amazed!” 

“Father,” she came close to him, the old filial note in 
her voice once more. “Will you tell me why you dis¬ 
approve of Mr. King? You’ve never given me a definite 
reason and I’ve reached an age when I cannot blindly obey 
a command. What have you against him?” 

“Only my own impression, and that of your mother 
and uncle!” Greenough shrugged. “I am not a metal¬ 
lurgist, yet I know the difference between gold and brass. 


THE SHADOWED FACE 


133 

He doesn’t ring true, his manner is a veneer, his face 
expresses traits which he doesn’t show to the world. I 
should be sorry for any woman who gave herself into his 
hands, least of all my own little daughter! Mary, you 
will put all thought of him from your mind?” 

“Father, when you commanded me to stop seeing him 
I was silent; you took that for consent. Unless I, my¬ 
self, discover something definite against him I shall make 
no promises, but I think—perhaps—you are right!” She 
laid her hand over his for a moment with a little smile, 
then turned and left him, yet when she was alone in her 
room her thoughts went swiftly to that other man—in 
hiding. 

She lay listening fearfully for the creak of the stairs 
as Susan mounted to the guest chamber for bedding and 
then strained her ears for the clatter of dishes from the 
kitchen, but only faint sounds reached her till at last the 
bolt rattled in the back door and Susan ascended to her 
own room. 

How long would it be possible to keep him concealed in 
the studio? How get him to a place of greater safety? 
The problem filled her mind till sleep brought oblivion, 
but it was her first waking thought when she opened her 
eyes to find Susan standing beside her bed. 

“He’s all right ?” she whispered. 

“Yes, but you’ll take no chance of giving him away be 
going out there till night!” Susan ordered. “I took him 
his breakfast and a cold lunch for noontime before the 
other girls were up, and I gave that studio a good clean¬ 
ing, too! He’s found some of your father’s books and 
nothing’s worrying him but the fear that you’ll be getting 
into throuble because of him. I tould him I’d see to that! 
Now get up and don’t be coming near me all day, that 


134 


LIBERATION 


we’d seem to be hatching something; you’ll be going for 
a bit of a talk with him when ’tis safe but not before!” 

Mary obeyed, but the day seemed interminable and 
when evening came at last she could scarcely restrain her 
impatience. No word had come from either Wesley or 
Mrs. Lorrin, no sign of life from the studio in the glen, 
no hint of suspicion in the air about her and yet the girl 
felt something tense and lowering in the atmosphere, 
which the distant roll of thunder that came with the 
falling of night could not wholly account for. 

Did some new danger, some fresh misfortune, lurk in 
the near future? Mary asked herself this question with 
a little shiver when at length, at a signal from Susan, she 
slipped out onto the terrace and off through the Rose 
Walk for the glen. The sky was heavily overcast, the 
thunder had come nearer and jagged forks of lightning 
tore the west. Would she find Lorrin safe? 

She hurried through the garden and was making for 
the grove when a brilliant white flash of the coming storm 
illuminated the path before her with a blinding radiance 
and she stopped. Was that a lurking figure there under 
the trees ahead? Her heart missed a beat and then 
pounded in her breast while she waited, but a second dart 
of lightning showed that no one was there and, relieved, 
she hastened forward. 

The studio was dark when she approached it, but at her 
first soft step on the porch the door opened and Lorrin’s 
voice came to her. 

“Miss Greenough? You shouldn’t have ventured out 
with this storm coming but I’m glad you did. There’s 
something I must ask you.” 

He stepped aside for her to enter and then, closing the 
door, lighted a low lamp. 


THE SHADOWED FACE 


135 


“Oh, is that safe?” Mary asked. 

“Yes; you see Susan has covered all the windows 
tight with those heavy green curtains except that one that 
looks out directly over the glen. She’s a treasure, Miss 
Greenough, I can never be sufficiently grateful!—But 
won’t you sit down? I can only keep you a minute for 
the storm will be upon us.” 

“Was it about your mother you wished to ask me?” 
Mary seated herself. “I sent no word to her to-day for 
I wanted to talk to you first.” 

“No. It’s about something you told me last night.” 
Lorrin paused, waiting until a nearer peal of thunder had 
died away. “Forgive me for mentioning it again but I 
must know. You said that Mr. King had promised to try 
to prove my innocence; I couldn’t understand his changed 
attitude, but now I’m afraid I do.—What is the matter?” 

Mary had started nervously and now she exclaimed: 

“It’s that open window there. I thought I saw some¬ 
thing move in the shadows beyond. I didn’t, of course, 
but I don’t think it’s wise to have this light, really!” 

“I’ll put it out the instant you leave,” he assured her. 
“Miss Greenough, don’t think me ungrateful to any one 
but—Mr. King lent me clothes and money when com¬ 
pelled to at the threat of death! He took me far from 
the danger of recapture—when you forced him to do so 
with the alternative of losing you. He is not offering to 
help me now of his own volition; you persuaded him! 
What inducement did you offer?” 

“Mr. Lorrin!” Mary rose, one hand going to her 
throat as though she were choking. “He knows I be¬ 
lieve in your innocence, that I couldn’t respect any man 
who stood by and permitted such injustice as you have 
suffered to go on. He wants to regain my respect which 


136 LIBERATION 

he forfeited that night. That is all I can say, and now-— 
ah-h 

She broke off with a little strangled cry, her eyes star¬ 
ing straight at the open window and Lorrin’s gaze fol¬ 
lowed hers. There in the shadow he saw a face—the face 
of Wesley King! 


CHAPTER XIII 


UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY 

A TENSE pause followed Mary’s involuntary cry, 
while George Lorrin waited quietly on the other 
side of the lamp-lit table, and then King’s voice 
spoke with a note of forced and slightly ironic cordiality 
from beyond the window: 

“So our guest of Monday night has returned! May I 
join your conference?” 

Lorrin turned with an inclination of his head to Mary 
as the storm in all its fury burst upon them and she re¬ 
plied, when she could be heard above its crashing roars: 

“Yes, Wesley. Come in very quietly, please, and shut 
the door.—You are alone?” 

She had added the question sharply and King nodded, 
then disappeared and in another moment they heard his 
cautious steps on the porch. While Lorrin advanced 
to admit him, Mary hurried to the open window, tore off 
her dark cape and hung it up over the disused curtain- 
pole brackets, so that it completely concealed the aperture 
and the light from within. 

“Good evening, Lorrin,” King nodded again as he 
stepped inside and closed the door. “A wild night! My 
wife has perhaps told you that our marriage is being tem¬ 
porarily kept a secret?” 

“No, Mr. King, but I inferred that; it is no concern of 
mine, of course. My second intrusion here——•” 
i37 


LIBERATION 


138 

'‘He came, Wesley, because he was afraid our aiding 
his escape had brought trouble upon us! He was willing 
to do anything to spare us!” Mary interrupted Lorrin’s 
explanation. “Eve told him that you promised to help 
prove his innocence.” 

“If it could be done!” King pressed Mary’s hand and 
then turned once more to the other man who had drawn 
a third chair to the table. “My wife is very enthusiastic, 
but I fear a little impracticable in that she minimizes the 
difficulties of such a venture. The time that has elapsed, 
the influence that would have to be brought to bear to 
have the case reopened, the chance in a million that we 
could find any evidence to controvert that produced at 
the trial—I shouldn’t be justified in holding out any false 
hopes.” 

“I hadn’t dreamed of Mrs. King or yourself as inter¬ 
ested sufficiently in my trouble to try actively to set mat¬ 
ters right!” Lorrin returned with simple dignity. “I 
am very grateful, infinitely so, but I would prefer that 
you didn’t make the attempt. I really couldn’t think of 
dragging you further than I have into my wretched 
affairs. I shall leave at once, as soon as I can get away 
without the risk of it becoming known that I was har¬ 
bored here.” 

“But, Wesley, you swore you’d try every means 
possible!” Mary accused. “Mr. Lorrin shall not leave 
here while the slightest risk remains of his being taken 
again! The evidence must be found! The case shall be 
reopened!” 

“I’ve already started the task you assigned to me, my 
dear!” King spoke with quick reassurance. “I’ll have 
to read up on the trial, of course, and the whole thing will 
take time—weeks and months, perhaps—before I might 


UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY 


139 

be able to produce a shred of evidence of even reason¬ 
able doubt, if at all! I didn’t begin to realize the diffi¬ 
culties when I promised to try, but I’ll keep my word. 
If Mr. Lorrin had been afraid that our aiding his escape 
brought trouble to us, may I point out that he would 
have acted more wisely if he’d put as many miles as 
possible between himself and this place instead of return¬ 
ing? Every hour he spends here adds to the risk!” 

“He couldn’t leave now, and you know it!” she re¬ 
torted. “If that is what you’ve come here to sug¬ 
gest-” 

“It isn’t!” King interrupted in his turn. “I naturally 
supposed that you were in communication with some one 
at the address you gave my wife, Lorrin, and that she 
could reach you with the offer I made to her Tuesday 
evening. I came to repeat it to her to-night, and I’m not 
sorry to find you here so that I can urge it on you in 
person. I’d do my best for you, but you must realize 
how hopeless it would be to try to fasten that forgery 
on any one else at this late date, and if you stay in this 
country it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be caught. 
The law’s a pretty perfect machine these days!” 

“That is a risk which I must take,” Lorrin replied 
calmly. “I fully appreciate the magnanimity of an at¬ 
tempt to prove me guiltless of that charge, but I under¬ 
stand how useless it would be on the part of any one but 
myself. I must try it alone.” 

“Anonymously, from some hiding-place?” King 
stirred contemptuously in his chair. “Good Heavens, 
man, can’t you see the impossibility of it? One hint of 
inquiry, and the authorities would trace it and be down 
on you like a thousand of brick! I tell you the fellow 
who forged that check will never be found! He was 


LIBERATION 


140 

clever enough to get away with it at the time, and you 
don’t think he’s napping now, do you?” 

'‘Wesley!” Mary was sitting apart with her hands 
folded tranquilly in her lap as though intent on the war¬ 
ring elements without, but something in her tone made 
King turn quickly and look at her. “If you undertake 
anything with the conviction that you’ll fail, I don’t think 
you’ll be of use, as I’d hoped. It appears that my opin¬ 
ion wasn’t too hasty, after all, and if you don’t want to 
go on you must please yourself.” 

“Of course I’ll go on, but I tell you there isn’t a 
chancel” King’s clenched fist, striking the table, made 
the lamp flicker, but he added hurriedly, in a milder tone: 
“I told you, dear, I’d do everything that was humanly pos¬ 
sible but you mustn’t think I can move heaven and earth! 
—Now, Lorrin, use your common sense! You’re not 
the type of man who’d forge another’s name, but that 
isn’t going to get you anywhere. You’ve had a rotten 
deal, perhaps, but it’s nothing to what they’ll hand you 
when they get you back behind the bars, and they’re 
bound to! You’re playing a losing game from the start 
and your crush-out is going to cinch things against you! 
Here’s my proposition: freedom’s worth while, isn’t it? 
Even without vindication, it’s life! Get out of the coun¬ 
try, make a fresh start somewhere, where extradition isn’t 
possible or at least unlikely. I’ll look that up for you, 
help you to get away and back you with enough capital— 
call it a loan without interest, if you like, to found some 
sort of business for yourself. What do you say?” 

Mary moved slightly now and Lorrin shook his head 
with a faint smile. 

“It’s more than generous of you, Mr. King, but I’m 
afraid I’ll have to take my chance here. I confess I can’t 


UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY 


141 

understand why you should make me such a benevolent, 
open-hearted offer. I’m a stranger to you, an intruder, 
a condemned outcast!” 

“But we think you’ve been done a great injustice, don’t 
we, Mary, my dear?” Once more King turned to her 
with a persuasive smile. “We’d like to do our best to 
make up for society’s debt to you, Lorrin, and this seems 
to be the only safe, sensible way. It’s an easy, luxurious 
life in those out-of-the-way little countries and you’ll get 
a different perspective on this case of yours. You’re 
forgotten now, anyway; what does it matter whether 
people did think of you as being guilty or innocent? 
Who cares? If you’ve got any relatives, they could go 
out to you after a bit, and as for the rest of the world— 
why remind it of the whole wretched business by starting 
something now that you can’t finish? Do what they’ve 
done, forget it! Think of the years you’ve spent in 
prison! I’m offering you freedom, security, life!” 

There was a brief silence as the storm, its fury wreaked, 
passed gradually away in the distance, and then Lorrin 
shook his head once more. 

“I’ve heard you through, Mr. King, and I want to 
express my gratitude again for your amazingly generous 
suggestion, but I’m afraid you don’t quite understand. 
It wouldn’t be freedom, without vindication! It wouldn’t 
be life, not a life that was worth living! The world’s got 
to know the truth, whether it’s interested or not, and if 
I’m taken again I’ll at least have made one last attempt to 
prove my innocence; nothing will matter after that, but 
if I fled the country like a guilty coward I’d never know 
a minute that wasn’t purgatory! Thanks, but—I’ve a 
fighting chance now even though the odds are against 
me. and I’m going to see it through!” 


142 


LIBERATION 


“Of course you are !” Mary rose. “You’re not fighting 
alone, Mr. Lorrin!—Wesley, I didn’t even mention your 
offer to Mr. Lorrin, it wasn’t worth repeating! The 
storm is quite over now, and I must be getting back to 
the house before I’m missed. If that is your only sug¬ 
gestion we needn’t prolong this conference any longer. 
I ask you at least to keep the confidence I’ve reposed in 
you!” 

King’s face was in shadow as he passed his hand be¬ 
fore it as though to mask his annoyance at the way his 
proposition had been received, but now he too rose hastily 
and his expression in the glow of the lamp was hurt but 
patiently resigned. 

“My dear, try to be reasonable! A man can’t offer 
more than I have, can he? Our friend here has refused 
safety, ease, a fresh start without the reinstatement that’s 
next door to the impossible. I admire him for it, of 
course, and I’ll go on with my investigation in his behalf 
to the best of my ability, only don’t hold it against me 
if I fail. I’m not superhuman! It’s settled that we try 
to reopen the case, then. Suppose you leave us, if you 
really must. I’d like to have a little talk with Lorrin, 
get a line from him on the whole affair from the inside. 
I can’t risk coming here often, for all our sakes.” 

Mary hesitated, but George Lorrin interrupted: 

“If you will be so good, Mrs. King? I don’t like to 
impose on your husband’s further kindness and I won’t 
detain him long, but as he’s willing to go over it with 
me I’d be glad of the opportunity.” 

Mary looked from one to the other of them and held 
out her hand to Lorrin. “Good night. I hope you and 
my—my husband will be able to work out some definite 
plan. You will hear from me to-morrow.” 


UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY 


M3 

King had turned to the window and removed her 
cape from the brackets, substituting a blanket from the 
cot that had been arranged in the corner, and now he 
folded the soft clinging cape about her with tender hands, 
holding her for the barest instant against him but at¬ 
tempting no other caress. 

“Good night, my dear,” he said lightly, as he released 
her. “I shall hope to have good news for you soon.” 

Without a glance at him she murmured “good night,” 
and then slipped quietly from the studio. There was 
silence between the two men till her soft footsteps had 
vanished down the porch steps, and then King turned with 
a frank air of camaraderie to the other. 

“Lorrin, a woman’s impetuous opinion doesn’t go far 
with me, even if that woman happens to be my wife, but 
I want to tell you man to man I believe myself that you’re 
innocent! I didn’t the other night, that’s why I was 
ready at first to give you up and then tried to shake you 
as quickly as I could, but that was because appearances 
were against you. I’ve had time to think it over, though, 
and I’m going to do the best I can for you, but you’ll have 
to help.” 

“Thank you,” Lorrin said gravely. “I am told that 
my case wasn’t wholly unfamiliar to you.” 

“As a matter of fact it was, in that I knew nothing 
more about it than the papers had.” King flushed a trifle. 
“I suppose you refer to the fact that we were both con¬ 
nected with old J. W. though in widely separated 
capacities. I don’t think I ever laid eyes on you till last 
Monday night and I’d never heard of you till your arrest 
and trial. I didn’t pay much attention to it then, to be 
honest; I was pretty busy and old J. W.’s affairs had so 
many ramifications, as you know, that you might have 


144 


LIBERATION 


been a stranger working for some other concern for all 
the impression the case made around the main office, 
except that it might have been a warning to some of the 
minor employees. I don’t mean to be brutal, we’ve got to 
face facts.” 

“I understand, of course.” Lorrin dismissed the sub¬ 
ject with a gesture. “I was an outside man, as you may 
recall; I only showed up at the main office to hand in a 
report at rare intervals and I never heard of you, either. 
Your name didn’t mean anything to me when I learned it 
the other night.” 

King’s flush deepened. 

“Yours did when you wrote it as a witness, of course,” 
he admitted. “It was familiar, but it took me a minute 
or two to connect it with that affair, and I didn’t see that 
it would do any good to mention it then. Let’s get down 
to cases now; who did you come into contact with when 
you used to come to the office with your reports?” 

Lorrin hesitated, frowning thoughtfully: 

“Some of the junior clerks, or perhaps an under secre¬ 
tary,” he replied at length haltingly. “They’d bring me 
out Mr. Wharton’s o.k. and that would be the end of it 
till the next time. There were four junior clerks, weren’t 
there? You’d know, being in the same office all the time, 
and my memory doesn’t seem to be working well. Per¬ 
haps if you’d mention their names I might recall-” 

“Hanged if I can think of them myself!” King passed 
his hand across his forehead again. “They were only 
figureheads to me and I left soon after that affair came 
up. Let me see: there was a plodding old chap named 
Norcross, and a younger fellow, Mayhew, and—er—er— 
Lamprey. I think they were all, at least at that time.” 

“I’m quite sure there was a fourth,” Lorrin insisted, 



UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY 


MS 

still thoughtfully. Then he glanced up suddenly. ‘‘It’s 
odd, isn’t it, when you can recall the other three ?” 

“Ha, yes!” King smiled. “I remember him now; 
plastered hair, Broadway clothes, air of fancying himself 
a man of the world on twenty-five a week! What was 
his name? Hull, or Hall, or something—I’ve got it! 
Hill! Did you know any of them particularly?” 

Lorrin shook his head, but all four men crowded upon 
his mental vision: bald, stoop-shouldered Norcross, se’ri- 
ous, officious Mayhew, Lamprey bored and lazy, and dap¬ 
per young Hill with his merry eyes, weak chin and air of 
brisk cordiality. The last was by far the most pervasive 
personality in the unimportant outer office; it struck 
Lorrin again as strange that King hadn’t recalled him 
even before the others. 

“I remember them vaguely,” he replied to the other’s 
question. “I couldn’t say I actually knew any of them, 
beyond a word or two.” 

King settled back in his chair. 

“We’re not getting anywhere,” he remarked. “You 
didn’t break out of prison just for freedom alone, I under¬ 
stand that. You meant to prove you were innocent. 
Who do you suspect ?” 

“No one.” Lorrin spread his hands in a helpless ges¬ 
ture. “I have no more idea now than when I stood be¬ 
fore Mr. Wharton and he thrust that check under my 
eyes, who could have made it out and endorsed it! I 
knew his handwriting and if it wouldn’t have been idiotic 
to suppose he’d write a check to me for five thousand 
dollars without any reason, I’d almost be willing to swear 
he had! The forgery was perfect! I had several of his 
signatures, you see, on those o.k.’s, and that told against 
me at the trial—opportunity to study them, and all that. 


LIBERATION 


146 

My own signature gave me the worst turn of all! Eve 
got to admit it was like mine, so like it that if I wasn’t 
sure of my own sanity I’d have thought it was mine! 
The whole thing is a mystery, and an infernal one!” 

“But what did you mean to do?” King persisted. 
“You must have had some plan when you escaped; how; 
were you going about it to find the guilty man?” 

“I hadn’t thought as far as that,” Lorrin responded. 
“I suppose it sounds strange to you but you’ve never 
been—inside. Men there seem to think in grooves, they 
don’t go much beyond them. It seemed to me that if only 
I were free the rest would be easy, the world must listen 
to me! I didn’t consider that I was friendless, that if I 
went to any reputable lawyer or even detective agency 
they’d send me back like a shot instead of protecting me! 
I had a vague notion of going away somewhere till I’d 
grown a mustache, changed my appearance as much as 
possible, and then of coming back and trying to scrape 
acquaintance under an alias with some one close to Mr. 
Wharton and getting a line on his staff at that time, but 
that was all in the air. The main thing was to get free 
first and then plan my course. It was some one associated 
with Wharton, that goes without saying; some one who 
knew his handwriting as well as he knew it himself, and 
who decided on me for the scapegoat and managed to get 
hold of my signature, too. That’s as far as I can go.” 

“Well, it’s something!” King rose. “You have 
gathered, I suppose, that I’m not in especial favor with 
my wife’s relatives at the present moment, and it wouldn’t 
make matters any better if I were discovered here, but 
I’ll come back in a day or two. Meantime, I wish you’d 
think of everybody connected with your work at old 
J. W.’s. Make a list of any, inside or out of the office, 


UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY 


147 

who might have access to your signature as well as his 
and have it ready for me; that will be a start. Jot down 
any little thing you might have heard of them, their habits 
and so on/’ 

“Gossip, you mean?’’ Lorrin got out of his chair and 
was forced to look down in order to meet the eyes of his 
unexpected guest. “It’s curious, but I remember some¬ 
thing now about that clerk you had almost forgotten, 
Hill.” 

“About Richard Hill King repeated in surprise. 
“I thought you didn’t know him beyond a word or two.” 

“I didn’t, but I’ve heard a stray fact or two about him,” 
Lorrin added quickly: “You understand I’m not sug¬ 
gesting he knew anything more about the affair than I* 
did myself, but he got in some sort of rotten debt about 
that time; the details will come back to me later. He got 
out of it about five or six months before my own trouble 
came, so it couldn’t have had any connection with the 
forged check, but whenever I saw him in the office dur¬ 
ing those last few months his manner toward me had 
changed. It made a distinct impression on me. That 
matter of a debt was only a rumor-” 

“And it won’t help much!” King interrupted carelessly 
with a shrug. “However, think up whatever you can and 
let me have it when I come. As I told you, I can’t 
promise anything, and I’d hoped you could help me with 
some definite suspicion, but we’ll do the best we can.” 

The two men separated with a mere nod of farewell 
and Lorrin lowered his lamp as the other shut the door 
behind him and crossed the porch with a muttered curse 
as the still dripping eaves sprinkled his hat. He had 
proceeded midway through the grove when a slim figure 
stepped from behind a tree and confronted him. 



148 


LIBERATION 


“Wesley ?” 

“Mary—dear!” He added the last word with a quick 
intake of his breath. “You waited to see me alone ?” 

“To ask what you mean to do.” Her whisper was low 
but firm and she ignored his outstretched hands. 

“To win you back to me!” he cried huskily. “You’ve 
given me an unfair task, darling, but I’ll prove that man’s 
innocence, if any living person can! Isn’t my presence 
here to-night proof of that? Have you nothing to say to 
me, my wife? Nothing except of—him?” 

“You’re going to play fair yourself, Wesley? He’s 
at your mercy now!” Her eyes seemed searching his in 
the darkness between them. “You’re not pretending to 
help him in order to give him away, because you think if 
he’s where his case will be hopeless forever, I’ll stop try¬ 
ing to prove his innocence, and not make that an issue 
between us?” 

“Mary, don’t try me too far!” King seized her arm 
in a sudden grip that made her wince. “I’m willing to 
do what I can for this fellow to please you, but why is 
he an issue between us? What is he in our lives? Do 
you want me to think you’re in love with him?” 

He had spoken in the blind heat of unreasoning passion 
but it subsided at Mary’s low cry. 

“How—how dare you! Oh, let me go! Let me go!” 
She wrenched herself free from him and turning fled 
precipitately as though from something fearsome and 
horrible, and yet, even as she ran her heart gave unex¬ 
pected but overwhelming testimony to the truth of his 
accusation! She was his wife, as long as they both should 
live, but at last love had come to her, however hopeless! 
She loved George Lorrin! 


CHAPTER XIV 
“find that man!” 

“T WANT wan-wan-three-four Brinckerhof!” Susan 

I enunciated clearly the next morning in the telephone 
booth at the village drug store. Early as it was, 
she had been through two mystifying scenes that morn¬ 
ing; first at dawn when she took a steaming pot of coffee 
and generous package of food to the studio, and later in 
the bedroom of her young mistress. 

She had found the secret guest pacing the floor in a 
fever of inward excitement and he asked, if it could be 
done without risk to Miss Mary, to have his mother sum¬ 
moned to him. Carrying the news to the house, Susan 
discovered that Mary, too, seemed to have become infected 
with the same queer agitation, but in another way. She 
seemed happy and sorrowful at the same time, with her 
color coming and going and her eyes darkening and 
brightening, as if a quick shadow kept passing over them, 
but it couldn’t have had anything to do with the poor 
hunted young lad in the studio, for she didn’t even want 
to see him, after being so anxious the day before! Susan 
would have thought she was afraid of something, if she 
hadn’t known that fear wasn’t in her, and she couldn’t 
understand it. 

Her young mistress had agreed eagerly, however, that 
the lad’s mother be sent for, hence Susan’s early and 
secret errand; and when now a quavering voice replied 
warily over the wire she spoke in as guarded a tone. 

149 


LIBERATION 


1 So 

“I’ve a message from Miss Greenough to Miss Stanley. 
You’ll be minding the name?” 

“There’s no such person here.” The aged voice had 
hesitated. “Who are you?” 

“Who but Miss Greenough’s nurse since she could 
walk, and if you’re the butler that ’phoned to her day 
before yesterday you’re wasting the time of the both of 
us. Will you take her the message ?” 

Susan had snapped out her retort in exasperation, and 
John Thomas replied with a measure of reassurance: 

“I think I can locate Miss Stanley. If you’ll tell me 
what Miss Greenough would like to have her know-” 

“Say that if Miss Stanley will take the nine-fifteen train 
up from the city this morning she’ll be able to see an old 
friend from Bridgepor-rt.” There was a smothered ex¬ 
clamation from the other end of the wire, but Susan 
went on with her instructions. “From the station Miss 
Stanley is to take a taxi up the hill to the Red Maple 
Inn. Then on foot she’ll follow the high brick wall of 
the Trevor estate till she comes to the low hedge of ours, 
Green Lodge, and the little, small side gate that’s in it. 
Miss Greenough’ll be waiting for her there. Is it straight 
you’ve got all that, now?” 

“ ‘Red Maple Inn—follow brick wall to hedge with 
gate in it’!” The tremulous voice repeated and then 
added in an anguish of suspense. “Oh, ma’am, is 
everything all right with—with the friend from Bridge¬ 
port ?” 

Susan’s sharp features relaxed in a kindly smile and she 
responded impulsively. 

“He is that! Ain’t it me that’s looking out for him ?— 
Miss Stanley will not be acting upset-like, or ’tis betther 
she don’t come.” 



‘‘FIND THAT MAN!” 151 

“No, ma’am, she—she’ll understand. She’ll be there, 
tell Miss Greenough, and most grateful!” 

Susan hung up the receiver and left the booth with a 
tart response to the banter of the clerk polishing the nickel 
of the soda fountain. She climbed the hill to Green 
Lodge, deep in meditation over the surprising events of 
the past few days, and passed her mistress descending the 
stairs for breakfast. 

“Oh, Susan!” Mary breathed. “She is coming?” 

“To the side gate be half past ten,” Susan spoke from 
the side of her mouth in a dramatic whisper although the 
voices of Mr. and Mrs. Greenough sounded from behind 
the closed dining-room door. “Your mother’ll be after 
having her massage then and himself on his way to your 
uncle’s; but don’t be letting her make a scene down at the 
studio, or the gardener may take it into the square head 
of him to snoop around. You might have a chance to slip 
out first and tell your young man-” 

“He’s not my young man!” Mary blushed. “You 
mustn’t say that again, Susan; there’ll never be a young 
man for me!” 

She had tried to speak lightly, but there was an under¬ 
lying note of tragedy in the young tones which made 
Susan stare after her till she had disappeared into the 
dining-room, and then mount the stairs shaking her head. 
So they’d quarreled! ’Twas a pity they couldn’t wait till 
he’d got more than one leg over the prison wall, but it 
would all come right. 

Her solution of Mary’s changed attitude would have 
been confirmed could she have seen the greeting between 
hostess and guest an hour later when the young girl 
slipped reluctantly down to the studio, for an odd con¬ 
straint was noticeable between them. 



152 


LIBERATION 


“I can’t stop a minute!” Mary announced breath¬ 
lessly, her eyes not meeting his. “I wanted you to know 
that your mother is coming! I got word to her and she’ll 
be here at half past ten.” 

“ ‘My mother’!” he repeated and now Mary did look up 
at the sound of the break in his voice. “I can’t thank 
you! She may be followed, it may bring trouble upon 


“If she is followed, wouldn’t it be natural under the 
circumstances for an anxious mother to haunt the neigh¬ 
borhood for news of—of your possible recapture?” 
Mary asked. “I’m sure I can meet her and bring her here 
without arousing suspicion. Can you tell me—did you 
learn anything from Mr. King last night? Anything 
that will help, I mean ?” 

She would not voice her further distrust, but even 
as she spoke the hot color suffused her cheeks again with 
shame at the thought of the encounter in the grove the 
night before, and Lorrin observed it wonderingly as he 
replied: 

“No, he questioned me chiefly about the people I had 
known in Mr. Wharton’s office and whom I might sus¬ 
pect, but I told him I had no suspicion, no definite plan.— 
Miss Mary,” his tones were lowered, “he is doing this 
because you persuaded him, but I wish you hadn’t! It is 
wonderfully kind of you to take such an interest but I 
cannot bear to have you identified with this affair! Mr. 
King is right; the hope of proving myself innocent is a 
forlorn one and even the chances of my remaining at 
liberty are precarious. I must go as soon as I can get 
far enough away to prevent my being traced back here, 
and you may be able to forget the trouble I have caused 
you!” 



“FIND THAT MAN!” 


153 

“Is that what he-” Mary paused, biting her lip. 

“Mr. Lorrin, once and for all, you shall not go! Mr. 
King may doubt the outcome, but I don’t! I’ve promised 
your mother—I’ve promised myself—to see that this un¬ 
just accusation shall be lifted from you and I don’t mean 
to stop till the whole truth is known! I must go—it is 
almost time! Keep up the faith you have held fast to 
through everything and don’t let your mother lose hers! 
We’re not depending on Mr. King, you know; I’ve a 
plan of my own!” 

A plan Mary had, indeed, but it had only come to her 
at that moment; and as she slipped back through the 
grove, with an armful of ferns from the glen to account 
for her presence there should she meet the gardener, she 
contemplated it. 

Mrs. Lorrin must not stay long; what if Mary were to 
accompany her to the city and beard the lion himself in 
his den? Would he see her, would he permit her to re¬ 
main and question, when he learned the errand upon 
which she had come ? Mary had some misgivings but it 
was worth trying, any step was worth taking if in the 
end George Lorrin might stand free and exonerated be¬ 
fore the world! Then their paths would never cross again 
but she could always carry in her heart the memory of 
these days of friendship all the more close because of the 
peril which menaced him. 

As she approached the side gate she saw a pathetic 
figure in rusty black wandering along the path beside the 
road toward her, the tall, slender form bent as with weak¬ 
ness, the veiled face averted, so that she was not sure it 
could be the expected arrival till she caught a glimpse 
of the snow-white hair beneath the heavy meshes of black 
tulle. 



LIBERATION 


154 

Mary was on the point of starting impulsively forward 
when the woman made an almost imperceptible gesture 
behind her and the former observed a red-faced, heavy- 
set young man in a cheap, ready-made sack suit, 
apparently studying the vines that clambered over the 
brick wall of the neighboring estate. 

The woman stopped within a few feet of her on the 
other side of the gate and as she did not speak Mary 
asked in a clear, steady tone? 

“Did you wish to see some one here, one of the maids, 
perhaps?” 

“No, young lady,” Mrs. Lorrin caught her cue. “I’m 
a stranger here. I want to go down to the—the prison, 
but I can’t seem to get courage.” 

The young man was sauntering idly nearer and Mary 
half opened the gate. 

“You seem to be ill. Would you like to come in and 
rest for a minute? You have—friends, down there?” 
She knew that every word and motion carried to the 
loiterer, and gestured frankly toward the prison down the 
hill. 

“Yes.” Mrs. Lorrin paused and then resolutely 
plunged. “It’s my son! I must find if there’s news of 
him, I couldn’t keep away! You see, he escaped a few 
days ago and I haven’t heard a word—not a word! I’m 
almost crazy!” 

The young, red-faced man was passing now, staring 
with keen impertinence at Mary, but she appeared not to 
be aware of his presence. 

“You poor thing, I don’t wonder!” she exclaimed with 
impersonal compassion. “We heard the bells, of course, 
but I don’t think your son has been found. Come in and 
one of the maids will give you a cup of tea, and perhaps 


‘FIND THAT MAN! ,: 


I can get my father to telephone the warden for you; 
they’re friends and he says the warden is a very kind 
man.” 

With a satisfied shrug and sneer the man had strolled 
off down the hill as Mary drew the older woman along 
between the hedgerows. 

“Oh, Miss Greenough, that was a police detective!” 
Mrs. Lorrin whispered fearfully. “I fancied I was fol¬ 
lowed from the neighborhood of my house and in the 
train I was sure!” 

“Well, he doesn’t think anything!” Mary spoke with 
forced cheerfulness, for the moment had been a tense one. 
“I’m sorry, but you mustn’t stay long, only a few minutes, 
and please don’t—don’t break down! Our gardener is 
about and he might hear.” 

“I won’t.—Miss Greenough, did your message mean 
that my son is here?” She grasped the girl’s arm in an 
agony of entreaty. “You are—hiding him?” 

They had entered the grove, and Mary pointed ahead 
to the opening about the glen. 

“He’s there, in that little rustic studio. You will find 
him changed, as he will you, but you’ll be brave, dear 
Mrs. Lorrin? Remember he hasn’t been hurt, he’s free, 
and we’re going to work to keep him so!” 

“You are a very brave, wonderful girl yourself, Miss 
Greenough!” The older woman’s tones were not quite 
steady, but they carried no hint of tears. “I shall not 
jeopardize his safety nor bring trouble on you for your 
great kindness to us both! Only let me see him, just for 
a moment! Let me put my arms around him just once, 
and I will go!” 

Mary led her up on the little porch and as the door re¬ 
mained closed she guessed Lorrin’s intent. Opening it 


LIBERATION 


156 

she pushed the other gently over the threshold and closed 
the door softly behind her, but not before her ears had 
caught his low choking murmur: “Mother!” and the 
answering cry: “My son! Oh, my son!” 

With tears blurring her own eyes, Mary hurried back 
to the house. This moment was sacred to the woman 
who had the right to love him and she would give 
them as long together as she dared. What had become 
of the detective? Had they lulled his suspicions or 
would he return shortly with a demand to search the 
premises ? 

From the terrace she commanded a full view of the 
road which wound steeply down the hill, but only the 
doctor’s sedan, a tradesman’s wagon and a girl with a 
golf bag were visible on it, and the path about their hedge 
was deserted. She could give them twenty minutes, per¬ 
haps, but no longer, and meanwhile she must prepare to 
go to town. Mrs. Lorrin must remain till a later train, 
she decided, to wander about the town and throw the de¬ 
tective further off the track, but she herself was filled 
with her plan which would brook no delay. 

Before the twenty minutes were more than half over, 
however, mother and son were seated side by side on the 
couch, their first transports of emotion over and their 
wondering gratitude for Mary’s championship dismissed 
for the imperative need of the moment. Mrs. Lorrin 
felt in her handbag. 

“George dear!” she said very low. “They shan’t take 
you back to that place! They mustn’t! God knows I 
don’t want your hands to be stained with human blood, 
but one look shows the torture they’ve inflicted on you 
and they shall never have you in their power again! If 
it wasn’t that you are innocent I might be able to bear the 


'FIND THAT MAN!” 


l S7 

thought, but I’d rather have you dead than—there! Take 
this and if the need comes, use it as you think best. I 
shall never blame you!” 

She had drawn a small but ominously practical looking 
revolver and a box of cartridges from her bag and as 
she pressed them into his hands he gazed down at them 
with mingled emotions. 

“Thank you, mother dear. I understand. I’m not a 
coward but they’ll never take me again alive, I’ve sworn 
that!” 

“My son, we’ve got to prove the truth to the world! 
I’ve exhausted every effort, I—I had almost given up all 
hope of that, but this splendid, young girl has given me 
new courage, and surely your escape was prophetic! If 
there is anything you can suggest, anything you can tell 
me that you were perhaps too overwhelmed at the time of 
the trial to remember-” 

“There is something, mother!” George Lorrin inter¬ 
rupted eagerly. “You’ll have to be very careful, but only 
you could do anything about it. I have reason to think 
that a young clerk who worked in Mr. Wharton’s main 
suite of offices, although in an outer one, may know 
something he was afraid or unwilling to come forward 
and tell. I think the matter of that forgery was planned 
some time ahead and he knew about it; I think that some 
one else knows now that he knew, but that’s aside from 
the case. I don’t even know whether this young man 
works for Mr. Wharton still or not, but you must find 
him wherever he is, and say to him just what I tell you. 
Will you? His name is Richard Hill.” 

“Of course I will!” His mother repeated the name 
to herself. “What does he look like and what am I 
to say to him?” 



LIBERATION 


158 

Lorrin described the dapper, cocksure, irresponsible, 
young clerk and added: 

“He tried to avoid me noticeably toward the last, as 
though he were uncomfortable when I was around— 
afraid or ashamed! He wasn’t bad, mother, but he was 
wild and didn’t think of anything except a good time 
and living as extravagantly as he could, but he’d always 
been laughing and joking about the office like a big school¬ 
boy. Don’t bother him at Mr. Wharton’s, but if you tele¬ 
phone and pretend to be a relative they’ll give you his 
home address or that of the place where he is employed 
now, if he has changed his position. I hate to think of 
asking you to do this but a private detective might 
bungle.” 

“My own boy, is there anything I wouldn’t do?” 
Mrs. Lorrin asked with tender reproach. Then she 
added: “Do you wish me to go to him as a stranger?” 

“As the mother of George Lorrin!” her son replied 
grimly. “Go to his home address this evening, follow 
him there, if necessary, from where he is working. He’ll 
know of my escape, of course; watch and see if he acts 
nervous or troubled. Tell him frankly that, although you 
haven’t heard from me and can’t imagine where I’m hid¬ 
ing, you’ve learned on good authority that he knows not 
only that I am innocent but could tell who was guilty if 
he chose. Ask him to describe to you every man in 
Wharton’s offices with whom he came in contact, and to 
give you their names. If he stops, tell him you know 
there was some one else, and insist till he recalls that per¬ 
son ; don’t bother about those he describes readily, but re¬ 
member any whom he may be unwilling to talk about. 
When he has quite finished, ask him what he knows of 
Mr. Wesley King. Be sure of the name, mater, I want 


‘FIND THAT MAN!” 


159 

to find out if he speaks of Mr. King as though he were 
afraid of his suspecting his own knowledge.” 

“Who is this Mr. King?” The mother’s voice lowered 
once more to a mere whisper. “What has he to do with 
this, George? Where did you hear of him?” 

“He has nothing to do with it, dear.” Lorrin’s ex¬ 
pression and tone were alike deeply grave. “He was an 
associate of Mr. Wharton, whom you and I never heard 
of, but I want to know how Richard Hill feels toward 
him. I want to know all you can find out about Hill 
himself. It may be difficult to trace him if he’s left 
Wharton, but don’t fail me, mother! I feel somehow 
that more depends on it than we can dare hope now.” 

“But if he knew or suspected who really committed 
that forgery and shielded him, he’ll keep on doing so 
now!” There was indignant contempt in her tone. 

“Not if you frighten him sufficiently, mother. He’ll 
save his own skin first! I know the type.” 

“I’ll frighten him!” Mrs. Lorrin’s classically cold 
features took on a look almost fierce in its maternal pro¬ 
tectiveness. “If he kept silent when he might have spoken 
and saved you from this torture and disgrace he shall 
tell me now! But if this Mr. King suspects that Rich¬ 
ard Hill knows anything, why doesn’t he himself come 
forward and force him to speak ?” 

“I’m not sure that he does. It’s just a notion of mine,” 
her son replied quickly. “Hill himself may not know or 
even suspect the truth; but find him, mother! When 
you’ve seen him come and tell me everything, but don’t 
say anything to another soul. Don’t build too highly on 
it, dear, for nothing may come of it, but find him, any¬ 
way. Find that man!” 


CHAPTER XV 


THROUGH THE GLASS PANEL 

M ARY’S gentle knock upon the studio door ter¬ 
minated the interview between mother and 
son, and she led Mrs. Lorrin through the grove, 
pausing where the path began. 

“You can find your way to the side gate alone?” she 
asked. “You’ll have strength enough to stroll about the 
town till the noon train, so as to bear out what the de¬ 
tective heard you tell me, about wanting to go to the 
prison but losing courage ?” 

“I’ve strength enough for anything, my dear, since 
I’ve seen him!” the mother responded. “You did well to 
warn me that he was changed! He’s just a ghost of my 
boy, as though he had come back from the dead, but, oh, 
he is mine!” 

“He’ll be almost his old self again when this shadow 
is lifted from him, dear Mrs. Lorrin!” Mary assured her 
earnestly. “It will be lifted, never fear!” 

“I do feel hopeful now.” Mrs. Lorrin readjusted her 
veil over her face and held out her hand. “I told my son 
that you had given me new courage!—I may come again ? 
I would not ask because of the added risk for you if I 
am followed here, but he has asked me to do something 
for him and then come and tell him about it.” 

“Of course!” assented Mary. “Let me know and I 
will arrange some new way of meeting you.” 

160 


THROUGH THE GLASS PANEL 161 

“I thought,” Mrs. Lorrin hesitated. “You see the way 
I am dressed? I wore the shabbiest clothes I could find, 
thinking that if I missed you at the gate I would go to the 
back door and ask for your old nurse, who telephoned 
John Thomas this morning, as though I were an old 
friend of hers. May I not do that the next time I come?” 

“It’s a splendid idea!” exclaimed the girl. “Her name 
is Susan Burke, and she is the dearest, most faithful soul 
in the world! Good-by, and come again when you can, 
Mrs. Lorrin. Some day I shall be able to welcome you 
properly when it will not mean danger to your son!” 

When her guest had followed the road to the village, 
Mary slipped out and hurried to the station just in time 
for her train. What had George Lorrin asked his mother 
to do for him? It couldn’t be about his case, of course, 
or he would have told her, and he said he had learned 
nothing from Wesley the night before. He had no other 
relatives—could it be a girl ? 

There must have been one before he was sent to prison! 
Had he made her remain away from him as he had his 
mother, or had she forgotten in two, short years ? Could 
it be that she had thought him guilty, failed him when 
most he needed her trust and faith? 

Mary felt herself growing angry and contemptuous 
at the thought, and then her own attitude forced itself 
upon her consciousness and mentally she shrugged. 
What was it to her? Was she petty and selfish enough 
to hope that he would never find happiness because her 
own reckless act had deprived her of it forever? He 
would be grateful to her for the little she had done, or 
might accomplish; he would look upon her as a friend, 
but he must never know that all unbidden love had come 
to her! 


LIBERATION 


162 

Mary turned and stared hard out of the window at 
the wooded hillsides flying past, but they were a mere 
green blur before her eyes. Had she lost all pride, all 
sense of honor? She was another man’s wife, even if 
they never met again; she must bear his name before the 
world presently, for the secret could not be kept forever; 
and she must hold it always in the highest honor and re¬ 
spect. Even if George Lorrin had cared for her, love 
would be hopeless from the beginning for them; but of 
course he didn’t dream of such a thing! If he or any 
one in all the world guessed, she would die of very shame! 

An hour later when Mary walked into the first of the 
long suite of offices of the redoubtable J. W. Wharton, all 
emotion had been banished, and it was a firm-lipped, cool¬ 
eyed, young woman who addressed the politely inquiring 
clerk. 

“I should like to see Mr. Wharton, please.” 

“Yes, madam?” The young man smiled pleasantly, 
but she thought there was a slightly harassed look about 
his eyes. “You have an appointment with Mr. Whar¬ 
ton ?” 

“No. I have come to see him on a private matter of 
the utmost importance.” 

The young man shook his head, the smile fading: 

“I am sorry, but Mr. Wharton sees no one without 
an appointment. His rule is established.” 

Mary felt her heartbeats slow at the finality of his 
words, but she insisted staunchly: 

“Tell him that I must see him! If not now, he must 
give me an appointment soon, to-day! I cannot tell any 
one else the nature of my business with him.” 

The clerk gave her a respectful but swiftly appraising 


THROUGH THE GLASS PANEL 163 

glance, and seeing nothing of the agent, charity beggar, 
nor crank, in the lissome, smartly attired, well-poised girl 
before him he capitulated. 

“It is most unusual, madam, but if you will give me 
your card I shall be glad to take it to his secretary.” 

Her card! Mary’s hand went involuntarily to her 
vanity case and stopped. Would “Ossining” b€ an ad¬ 
dress barring the door against her because of what he 
might surmise? If he told the police later that she had 
come to him on behalf of George Lorrin might it not 
precipitate disaster ? 

“I have none with me.” She steadied her voice with 
an effort. “If you have a blank one-” 

But the efficient young man was already holding out a 
pad and pencil and mechanically she wrote her first and 
middle names, aware that his glance was not quite as 
friendly as before, perfunctory as that friendliness had 
been. He could not guess her errand, but had he been 
one of those who knew George Lorrin before that thun¬ 
derbolt of unmerited disgrace? Could he, if he would, 
have told her anything ? 

Mary seated herself in the voluminous chair he drew 
forward and then watched his narrow shoulders in the 
trim-fitting coat as they disappeared into an inner office. 
There had been something uneasy in his manner despite 
his suavity; did he fear to get into trouble merely by ex¬ 
tending to her this courtesy which was a departure from 
the rules of his august chief ? 

“Old J. W.” was a martinet, she knew from Wesley. 
He had sent an innocent man to prison, brooking no op¬ 
position to his opinion, he had listened unmoved to the 
supplications of that man’s mother, turned a deaf ear to 



LIBERATION 


164 

any possible inner doubt of the justice of his course. 
How could she best approach him providing he even ad¬ 
mitted her to his presence ? 

All doubt on the latter point was quickly set aside 
when the clerk reappeared, holding the door by which he 
had entered open with an obsequious bow. 

“If you will come this way, madam ?” 

Mary rose, her knees trembling slightly, and followed 
through what seemed to her an endless succession of 
offices, small and intimate, large and imposing, and all 
sumptuously furnished. At last her guide stopped in a 
long, narrow, corridorlike anteroom with three desks in 
a row beside a low partition of clear glass beyond which 
she saw a massive gray head bent over a writing-table, the 
strong features in sharp silhouette against the light from 
a wide window beyond. 

She had time for only a brief impression, however, be¬ 
fore the clerk was silently holding open the door in the 
glass partition and she passed through, pausing after two 
or three steps to stand quietly regarding the man before 
her. His face was indeed rugged, deeply lined with con¬ 
scious force and dominance, his eyes small and keen, 
nose bulbous and lips thin and implacable above the 
square, smooth chin. His body, straightened now in his 
chair, was thickset and muscular rather than portly and 
his whole personality suggested power and control. 

He returned her calm gaze steadily, but after a moment 
the small eyes twinkled and he glanced down at the card 
she had written which lay on the desk before him. 

“Well, Miss Mary Esterby, did you come to have a 
look at me?” His deep tones were gruff but amused 
rather than discourteous and an inspiration came to the 
girl. 


THROUGH THE GLASS PANEL 165 

“No, Mr. Wharton.” Her tone was as cool and im¬ 
personally unconventional as his form of address had 
been. “I came to see if you were a bigger man than I’ve 
been told.” 

“What’s that?” She had not moved and he leaned for¬ 
ward in his chair, his heavy brows drawn together. 

“A man who was once associated with you said the 
other day that you never made mistakes, that you prided 
yourself so upon that, that it had become almost a com¬ 
plex with you. It must be a difficult standard to live up 
to, a big one.” Mary could feel her breath shortening, 
but she spoke evenly. “There’s a bigger one yet, though, 
isn’t there? To be willing to help prove oneself wrong 
even if one were certain one had made no mistake. I 
came to see if you were big enough for that.” 

“Young woman, you didn’t come here to discuss stand¬ 
ards or ethics!” The amusement was gone from his 
tones but there was still a grudging leniency in them. 
“Let’s get down to business.” 

“Can you spare me ten minutes ?” Again she followed 
his lead and her response was as curt as his. 

“Shoot!” 

“A man escaped from prison the other day whom the 
law sent there because of a crime that had been commit¬ 
ted against you.” Mary spoke rapidly now without pause. 
“You wouldn’t have handed him over, of course, if you 
hadn’t been convinced of his guilt. You never make mis¬ 
takes. There are some persons, however, aside from 
what family or friends he may have, who are equally 
convinced that a mistake has been made. I hstven’t been 
sent here to plead with you, for his case is closed as far 
as you are concerned, but to ask if you’ll answer a few 
questions purely in the interests of justice.” 


LIBERATION 


166 

The heavy jaw relaxed for a minute and he glared at 
her. Then he threw his head back and laughed. 

‘That Lorrin affair again! I thought I should be re¬ 
minded of it when I read of the scoundrel’s get-away, but 
you’ve taken a new approach, young woman! Sit down!” 

Mary had scarcely heard him. Her own low tones 
could not have carried distinctly over the top of that glass 
partition, though Wharton’s bellow must have been 
plainly heard, and she had become suddenly aware of an 
intense stare fixed upon her. From the center one of the 
three desks in the row outside, the weakly attractive face 
of the clerk who had received her was turned toward her 
and in the half-light it seemed oddly older and pallid. 
At the scrape of a chair upon the hardwood floor she 
aroused herself and, dropping into it, said pleasantly: 

“Thank you. That forgery was a pretty good one, 
wasn’t it? Your own signature—what did you think of 
it, speaking dispassionately?” 

“Mighty clever! That one of the questions you wanted 
to ask? If I hadn’t known better I might have thought 
I’d written it myself!” 

“But you never make mistakes!” Mary murmured 
softly. “If it wasn’t for that, Lorrin’s endorsement 
might have been as cleverly forged as yours, mightn’t it? 
I don’t believe a double forgery has ever been known in 
the history of crime and, of course, there must be prec¬ 
edents for all things in a mind limited by legality. Did 
any of your other employees have access to samples of 
your handwriting, Mr. Wharton?” 

“Good ‘Lord, yes! Secretaries, clerks, stenographers, 
the janitor’s cat, if he’s got one!” Wharton glanced 
rather significantly at the big clock on the wall but Mary 
went on imperturbably: 


THROUGH THE GLASS PANEL 167 

“And any one who had access to yours would be able 
to obtain Lorrin's signature also?” 

“Only in my main office here, in the ordinary course of 
events. He turned in various receipts and so forth.” 
Wharton's brows knit again, but this time thoughtfully. 
After a slight pause he shook his head and added: “It's 
too thin! If any one but Lorrin did it, why did they 
drag him in at all? Why not be satisfied with forging 
my name alone and making out the check to ‘cash’ or 
‘bearer' ?” 

“Why, indeed?” Mary murmured demurely but her 
heart was racing now. “Why didn’t Lorrin himself 
make it out that way instead of identifying himself with 
it? Why should any one drag him in at all except to 
connect him with it and make a scapegoat of him? These 
are some of the questions I came to ask you, Mr. Whar¬ 
ton, but I see you have already discounted them and of 
course you never make mis-” 

“Don't say that again, young woman!” He had been 
staring at her in amazement but now he brought his 
mighty fist down with a crash on the desk. “What blith¬ 
ering idiot told you I had a complex that I was infallible, 
that I boasted of never making a mistake?” 

“A friend told me that a former associate of yours 
said so, a Mr. Wesley King.” Mary felt as though her 
throat were closing, but she contrived to speak almost 
indifferently. “Mr. King never thought Lorrin was 
guilty, I understand-” 

“Not guilty!” Wharton exploded. “King knew he 
was! He urged me to make an example of him for the 
good of the office! Not that I needed any urging, for my 
mind was made up! You've been misinformed!” 

So Wesley, far from being indifferent to the case, had 




168 


LIBERATION 


thought George Lorrin guilty and had egged on his pros¬ 
ecution! No wonder he had been ashamed to tell her, 
no wonder he had started when he saw that name signed 
at the parsonage! 

From her first glimpse of it through the glass panel, 
Mary had been acutely conscious of the clerk’s curious, 
unwavering scrutiny but now it was momentarily forgot¬ 
ten and she replied mechanically: 

“I must have been. I didn’t think Mr. King knew Lor¬ 
rin personally.” 

“Don’t think he did myself!” growled Wharton. “So 
King’s been saying I thought I never made mistakes, eh ? 
Let me tell you, young woman, that King himself was 
one of my mistakes! Clever, good looks, good manners, 
—yah! Honest and straight because it suited his policy, 
but he couldn’t be square in other ways even with him¬ 
self ! Something rotten there but damned if I know what 
it is!—Beg pardon, Miss—Esterby. You’re not going?” 

“I’ve far exceeded my ten minutes, Mr. Wharton.” 
Mary had risen and now with a smiling nod she turned 
toward the door but he stopped her. 

“Then give me five, won’t you ?” He smiled also, and 
a curiously frank, winning expression came over his 
rugged, lined face. “I hadn’t discounted those questions 
of yours about the forged check, I hadn’t looked at them 
in the aspect in which you placed them just now. So you 
think Lorrin’s name was dragged in to fasten the guilt on 
him, eh? Do you know another factor in this case? 
That check was drawn on one of the obscure banks in 
which I keep several small accounts in connection with dif¬ 
ferent estates. It’s been proved that Lorrin learned by 
accident only two weeks before the forgery that I had such 
an account there, for my check book was lying open on 


THROUGH THE GLASS PANEL 169 

my desk here when he was left alone in the office for a 
minute; he spoke of it to one of the clerks as he left—• 
said Jove had nodded for once, confound his impudence! 
Later the same day another of my clerks drew my atten¬ 
tion, as I signed a check for him to mail, to the fact that 
one was missing and not entered on the stub, an invari¬ 
able rule of mine, naturally. The number of that missing 
check was that of the forged one which turned up six 
months later.” 

“That was brought out at the trial, I believe,” Mary re¬ 
marked, as he sat back in his chair once more. “I wonder 
why it didn’t turn up before?” 

“Because I keep several such accounts in obscure banks 
and—except for that particular check—I always keep 
such careful memoranda on them here in the office that I 
don’t bother to have my bank books balanced or ask for 
the checks for months at a time.” 

“Of course,” Mary smiled slightly. “It’s likely that 
Lorrin would have drawn another clerk’s attention to the 
check book having been left open if he had taken a check 
from it! I suppose it’s equally certain that none other 
of your employees could have been alone in here and so 
had access to it during the day?” 

“They could,” admitted Wharton. “The clerk who 
told me of Lorrin’s passing remark was long in his posi¬ 
tion here and thoroughly trustworthy. He died over a 
year ago. The one who drew my attention to the missing 
check is young, but a staid family man and conscientious 
to a fault. Neither of them was clever enough to have 
thought out such a scheme, much less committed the 
actual forgery. Miss Esterby, I believe Lorrin to be 
guilty, but you’ve shaken my conviction that others had 
not an equal opportunity at least. Come to me with proof 


170 LIBERATION 

of another’s guilt, and I’ll show you how big a man I 
am!” 

‘Thank you, Mr. Wharton!” Mary placed her hand 
for a moment in his extended one. “Will you answer 
one more question ? Have you seen Mr. King recently ?” 

“Not for more than a year. He gave up his position 
here for one in a broker’s office, began speculating in a 
small way and he’s prospered, but he won’t go far—he’s 
too clever and not wise enough! Don’t forget my offer!” 

“I shan’t!” Mary smiled again. “I think—I am quite 
sure—that I shall come, Mr. Wharton!” 


CHAPTER XVI 


MISSING 

M ARY looked forward with shrinking dread to 
the fact that her father and mother were giving 
a small dinner followed by the inevitable bridge 
that evening, but it held one ameliorating circumstance; 
she would have no opportunity to see Lorrin then, and 
he would take it for granted that before night fell she 
would not dare venture near the studio again. 

She wanted time to think, to set her mental house in 
order. So many new impressions had crowded upon the 
self-revelation that had come to her the night before that 
the girl was bewildered. Chief among these impressions 
was an irrelevant one, but on her homeward journey 
Mary could not put it from her thoughts, the strange 
watchfulness of the harassed looking young clerk through 
the glass panel during her interview with Wharton. 

That he should have been curious after her mysterious 
introduction of herself was perhaps to be expected. It 
was evidently unusual that Wharton should have received 
her at all under the circumstances, unprecedented that 
he had prolonged their interview, and his tones must 
have borne the subject of their conversation to the lis¬ 
tening ears. The clerk would naturally have been inter¬ 
ested, since the escaped prisoner under discussion had 
formerly been employed there, especially so if he had 
known him personally, but there had been something 
171 


LIBERATION 


172 

more than curious interest in his intent gaze; something 
watchful, guarded, almost furtive, yet eagerly alert. 

If only she might have learned his name! When he 
showed her out at the end of the conference he had 
seemed about to speak but thought better of it, and Mary 
had been tempted to address him but faltered. Had she 
missed a golden opportunity? Had he been a friend of 
George Lorrin, anxious to tell her something, yet not 
daring to venture? It was obvious that he stood in awe 
of his employer; what could it be that he had wanted to 
say? 

At home and in her own room once more, Mary 
pleaded a headache and curled up on her chaise longue 
to sum up the gist of that interview. She had succeeded 
in planting a germ of doubt in Wharton’s mind, but what 
had she learned? He had practically offered to help ex¬ 
onerate George Lorrin, but only if she brought him proof 
of another’s guilt; the law itself would do that, yet he 
might be useful, by bringing influence to bear to start 
the wheels in motion. She had touched his pride, flicked 
his self-esteem on the raw, by deliberately misconstruing 
a confidential remark of Wesley King’s, but it was plain 
that in so doing she had not injured in his eyes the man 
who was her husband, for he had already formed the 
same opinion of him as that held by her own people and 
confirmed by her brief experience. 

She must look over the clippings of the trial at the first 
opportunity and learn the names of the clerk who had 
repeated George Lorrin’s remark about the neglected 
check book and the other who drew attention to the 
blank stub. The first was dead but the second lived, and 
Wharton had spoken so approvingly of him that Mary 
concluded he was still employed by him. It was as un- 


MISSING 


173 

likely that he was guilty of the forgery as that Lorrin 
was, since both had made observations concerning the 
check book, but he might voice some suspicion, indicate 
some clew that would prove valuable. 

Her thoughts went back to Wesley King, switching 
now to the night of the elopement. He had wanted to 
give George Lorrin up, claiming that it was in the in¬ 
terests of justice, but in reality because the fugitive had 
demeaned him in his own eyes in their previous en¬ 
counter on the road. He had urged Wharton two years 
before to prosecute Lorrin, without even knowing him, 
“for the good of the office.” Had he been as equally in¬ 
sincere on that occasion, and if so, what had been his 
real motive? 

Wharton said he was clever, but not wise; what had he 
meant ? These, and a score of minor, confusing problems, 
thronged her brain, and she dressed and descended to help 
her mother receive their guests with the vague sensation 
that something still eluded her, some clew lay just beyond 
her grasp. 

Susan had carried a message to the lonely occupant of 
the studio that Mary would go to him early the next 
morning, but on Saturday Mrs. Greenough had a head¬ 
ache and Mary, perforce, sat with her for an hour after 
breakfast, although she inwardly chafed at the delay. 
She was as anxious to see Lorrin now as she had been 
on the previous day, for she wanted to describe the eaves¬ 
dropping clerk to him and learn if they had been ac¬ 
quaintances in the past, disgusted that the thought had 
not occurred to her before. 

She escaped from her mother’s room at last, but at 
the head of the staircase she encountered Susan with her 
finger to her lip and eyes shining with excitement. The 


LIBERATION 


174 

latter led her to an alcove and whispered portentously: 

“I’ve got a friend come to see me, a Miss Stanley! I 
put her up in my own room!” 

“Oh!” Mary frowned. “I don’t see how we can get 
her out to the studio just yet, for Nils is spraying the 
rose garden!” 

“ ’Tis you, she’s wanting to see, Miss Mary, and she’s 
upset-like in her mind about something. A fine, gentle- 
spoken lady she is, but meaning no disrespect to her I’d 
not be calling her over bright! All I could get out of her 
was that she’d failed in something, or bungled it, and the 
heart of her is broke.” 

Mary’s own heart felt like lead within her as she re¬ 
called what Mrs. Lorrin had told her on the previous 
day. Her son had asked her to do something for him 
and then come and tell him the result; had she gone to 
some girl he cared for to try to effect a reconciliation or 
bring them together and met with refusal? Was that 
why she had come to Mary as a friend, shrinking from 
dealing her son this added blow? 

“I’ll go to her at once.” Mary moved toward the 
stairs leading upward. “Keep watch for me, Susan, and 
let me know if mother calls.” 

Susan’s room was at the top of the house, but large 
and sunny, furnished comfortably with relics from an 
older period and here Mary found her guest pacing the 
floor. She did not appear heartbroken, but rather be¬ 
wildered and anxious, and she took Mary’s outstretched 
hand in both of hers. 

“My dear, forgive my intrusion, but something has 
occurred that my son must know, yet I felt that I should 
talk it over with you first!” 

“I’m glad, Mrs. Lorrin,” the girl said simply. “Sit 


MISSING 


175 

down. We shall be quite safe here, and you know you 
are not intruding! We are both working for one end.” 

“And I have made a mistake! I followed my son’s in¬ 
structions but perhaps too literally, and have undone all 
that I might have accomplished.” She seated herself, 
twisting her long, slender hands together in distress. “I 
was to gain a confidence, force it if necessary, but my 
indignation at all George has suffered possibly made me 
go too far!” 

“And you want to talk it over with me ?” Mary sat be¬ 
side her on the sofa, laying her hand over the twisting 
ones for a moment to quiet them. “Suppose you tell me 
from the beginning.” 

To gain a confidence—to force it! Surely that did not 
sound like reconciliation in a romance! The girl’s pulses 
leaped suddenly and then she sternly controlled them. 
What could it matter to her? George Lorrin did not 
care for her and she was another man’s wife! 

But Mrs. Lorrin had accepted her suggestion. 

“Yesterday when I talked with George he asked me 
to trace a clerk who worked in Mr. Wharton’s office at 
the time the trouble came. He said he might know some¬ 
thing he had been afraid or unwilling to tell at the trial. 
He told me that this clerk—Richard Hill, his name is— 
wasn’t bad but wild and extravagant, and playing jokes 
about the office like a great schoolboy! He’d always 
been friendly to George, except toward the last, when he’d 
tried to avoid him as though he were afraid or ashamed 
of something. 

“I was to go to him and tell him not only that I’d 
learned he knew George never committed that crime, but 
that he could tell who was really guilty, and frighten the 
truth out of him. George said he was the kind to tell 


LIBERATION 


176 

on anybody to save himself, and my boy wouldn’t speak 
disparagingly of a person without cause, Miss Green- 
ough!” 

‘Tm sure he wouldn’t,” Mary remarked mechanically, 
a sudden thought flooding her mind. “Did he describe 
this Richard Hill to you?” 

“Not his personal appearance. He asked me particu¬ 
larly to find out what he knew about a Mr. Wesley King.” 

For a moment the room whirled before Mary’s eyes, 
the previous flash of thought blotted out by this shock, 
and unconsciously she voiced the question which leaped 
to her mind. 

“What has Mr. King to do with your son’s case?” 

“That’s just what I asked George yesterday, for I’d 
never even heard of him,” Mrs. Lorrin responded, un¬ 
aware of the storm her remark had created in her com¬ 
panion’s brain. “He said Mr. King had nothing to do 
with it, but he’s been an associate of Mr. Wharton and 
George wanted to know how Richard Hill felt toward 
him, whether or not he was afraid Mr. King suspected 
either that he was guilty or knew who was. George 
didn’t put it quite that way, but that’s what I gathered.” 

“Did you find Richard Hill?” Mary asked in a strangled 
tone. 

“Yes, it wasn’t difficult. I planned it all first, and late 
in the afternoon I called up Mr. Wharton’s office and 
asked if Mr. Hill was still employed there, explaining 
that I was an old friend of his mother and would like 
his home address. He came at once to the telephone and 
though naturally he couldn’t recall the name I gave, he 
was most polite and invited me to dinner, giving me his 
address and saying his wife would love to meet one of 
his mother’s friends. 


MISSING 


177 

“Of course I wouldn’t accept, but I said I would call 
at eight. The address was in a quiet neighborhood up¬ 
town and the fact of his being married didn’t coincide 
with what George had said about his being wild and all 
that, but I supposed his wife must be some flighty little 
thing.” Mrs. Lorrin paused and drew a quivering breath. 
“Miss Greenough, I went to that apartment with hatred 
in my heart! I felt that if that young man had let my 
son go to prison when a word would have saved him, I 
could have wished him dead!” 

She was too overcome for a moment to go on. 

“I think I know, I could understand!” murmured 
Mary. “But please tell me! Did you go there ? Did you 
meet him?” 

“Yes.” The fiercely maternal light which had blazed 
for an instant in the older woman’s blue-gray eyes dulled, 
and she went on: “I found a neat, modest little apart¬ 
ment, and a serious-faced girl with a very young baby 
in her arms opened the door for me. She was polite but 
not as though she were greeting the woman I pretended 
to be, and when she showed me into the living-room and 
closed the door I guessed they knew I hadn’t come as a 
friend. 

“Then Richard Hill entered. He stood looking at me 
for a minute and then he came forward and called me 
by the name I had given, but in a questioning kind of 
way, and I said no, that I was George Lorrin’s mother. 
He asked why I’d come to him, that he hadn’t seen nor 
heard of George since his escape and I told him I hadn’t 
either, of course, but I was there to ask him what he 
knew about the crime for which my son had been sent to 
prison.” 

Her voice broke and she passed her hand over her eyes 


178 LIBERATION 

as though to shut out the vision of that interview, and 
Mary asked gently: 

“He denied any knowledge of it, of course? He asked 
who had sent you to him?” 

“He said he hardly knew George, just seeing him come 
in with his reports, and when I told him of what George 
had said about his changed manner during the last period 
before the trouble came, he said he must have imagined 
it; the little he’d seen of George he’d liked, and he felt 
awfully sorry when the matter of that check came up. 
He seemed to like all the people in the main office with 
him too, I think, although he spoke as if Mr. Wharton 
must be very unreasonable and difficult to work for—not 
as George had talked about him, even after being un¬ 
justly accused.” 

“What did he tell you about the other people in the 
office, Mrs. Lorrin? The clerks and secretaries, I mean.” 
Mary leaned forward earnestly. “Did he talk of them 
all, describe them?” 

“Yes, in a general sort of way.” The older woman 
glanced at her. “Why do you ask?” 

“Did he speak of a clerk who was good-looking and 
well dressed in a—a loud sort of fashion but rather 
weak, with narrow shoulders and a face without much 
character?” The girl was evidently seeking for words. 
“He wouldn’t describe him that way to you, but he might 
have given you a vague impression of such a person.” 

“With a receding chin and lines around his eyes, and 
a look as though he’d been ill?” Mrs. Lorrin’s glance 
had become a stare of amazement. “Richard Hill did 
indeed give me that impression and it wasn’t vague, 
either; it was he, himself! George has talked to you of 
him, then?” 


MISSING 


179 


Mary shook her head. 

“No, I’ve seen him. Would you mind giving me his 
address, Mrs. Lorrin ? But tell me first what you learned 
from him!’ , 

“Nothing, except that he does know or suspect some¬ 
thing, and won’t speak!” She struck her hands to¬ 
gether. “Oh, if only I hadn’t left until I learned the 
truth! I pleaded and threatened and made him tremble 
with fear, but he denied, denied! I was up against a 
stone wall, for I could see it wasn’t me he was afraid of, 
nor what I could do, it was something, some one else! I 
wouldn’t tell from whom I had learned of his supposed 
knowledge, and it was only a vague suspicion of my poor 
boy’s, without a shred of evidence to go upon, even 
though Richard Hill’s manner confirmed it! I failed, you 
see, and that isn’t all!” 

She bowed her head as if momentarily too overcome to 
go on, and after a little pause Mary could contain her 
impatience no longer. 

“Did you find out how Richard Hill felt toward—to¬ 
ward the man your son wanted you to ask about?” She 
could not bring herself to voice the name now. “Did he 
seem afraid of him?” 

“No. He didn’t mention Mr. King among the others 
in the office, but when I spoke of him, Richard Hill said 
that he had a bigger position there, with a separate office 
of his own in the suite, and unless he wanted the boy or 
a stenographer to take some letters they didn’t see much 
of him.” Mrs. Lorrin had roused herself and replied 
quickly. “Mr. King left a few months after my son’s 
trial and Richard Hill had heard that he was very suc¬ 
cessful in some other line.” 

Mary drew a deep breath. She could not tell why she 


i8o 


LIBERATION 


felt suddenly relieved, but it was as though a weight had 
been lifted from her thoughts. Still, George Lorrin had 
asked his mother to find out in an indirect way what she 
could of Wesley. Did he surmise that Wesley wasn’t 
playing fair now, that he didn’t mean to help, but was 
actually concealing some clew which might lead to the 
truth ? Could the man she had married be black enough 
at heart to send an innocent man back to prison, refuse 
to exonerate him, merely because of personal hatred en¬ 
gendered by the events of that memorable Monday night 
and their aftermath? 

It had been her turn to fall into a reverie of troubled 
thought, but now she turned once more to her companion. 

“That was all you learned ? He didn’t, perhaps uncon¬ 
sciously, give you a hint about any one else connected 
with the office who might have had reason and opportu¬ 
nity to commit that forgery?” 

“No. He was courteous and protested over and over 
that if George was innocent he was sorry for the horrible 
injustice that had been done and he’d give anything to 
help me prove it now, but he hadn’t an idea who had 
forged the check, and the person who told me he had 
must have been crazy. All the time, Miss Greenough, 
he was lying, and he knew that I knew it! He grew more 
and more agitated, and then a sort of calm came over him 
and he told me I had his sympathy, but he could do noth¬ 
ing for me or for my son. I saw that the moment had 
passed and I could gain nothing more, so I left.” She 
hesitated and then exclaimed: “If only I had controlled 
myself at the last! I ought to have remembered what 
was at stake, but the thought that this man knew and 
couldn’t be made to speak drove me mad! I don’t know 
what I said or threatened—bitter, terrible things! I 


MISSING 181 

must have struck home, for his face went quite white and 
his eyes were desperate!” 

“I should think they would have been, if he could come 
forward even now and won’t!” Mary cried indignantly. 
“You have nothing to reproach yourself with, dear Mrs. 
Lorrin! You haven’t hurt our investigation, you’ve 
helped it! We’ll make him speak, never fear!” 

“Will we?” There was acrid irony in Mrs. Lorrin’s 
tone. “I went too far! I ruined everything!” 

“How?” Mary started. “We can’t accuse him openly 
even of being an accessory—if that is what they call 
people who withhold criminal knowledge—until we have 
proof, but we’ll get it from his own lips!” 

“I’m afraid not!” The older woman’s voice was sud¬ 
denly hoarse with pent-up emotion. “I’d frightened him 
too much! Made him believe I knew more than I did! 
I felt uneasy about it when I reached home, I couldn’t 
sleep, and this morning about two hours ago the tele¬ 
phone rang! It was that girl, his wife, and she was be¬ 
side herself with anxiety. She wanted to know what I 
had said to her husband, what I had done with him! I 
couldn’t understand at first, nor imagine how she knew 
who I was in order to get my telephone number, but she 
said that directly I’d gone he told her that I was the 
mother of a fellow, George Lorrin, who’d worked with 
him, who was sent up from the office for forgery but es¬ 
caped. Now he—‘Dickie,’ as she called him—had said 
somebody was trying to ‘frame’ him for the crime. She 
said he hadn’t been like himself for the past week, but 
he was like a crazy man last night, and rushed out before 
she could stop him!” 

“ ‘Rushed out’!” Mary repeated, aghast. “You don’t 
mean that he didn’t come back—he’s run away!” 


LIBERATION 


182 

“Or killed himself!” Mrs. Lorrin shuddered. “She 
waited up all night, but he didn’t come home nor send 
any word, and she was frantic! I waited until the office 
opened and telephoned there, but he hadn’t arrived, nor 
had he an hour ago when I called again, and there ap¬ 
peared to be some excitement about his absence. Miss 
Greenough, he’s our most important witness, our only 
one, and I’ve driven him away! The man who might 
have cleared my son is missing!” 


CHAPTER XVII 


INTO HER OWN HANDS 

M ARY calmed and comforted the distressed Mrs. 

Lorrin as well as she was able and then, sum¬ 
moning Susan to see if Nils had ceased his 
labors in the rose garden, she managed to smuggle the 
older woman to the studio. She did not go in herself 
but hurriedly retraced her steps to the house, where she 
dragged Susan to her room and closed the door. 

“Eve got to go to New York right away!” she ex¬ 
claimed. “When mother is better you’ll have to tell her, 
but say I’ll be back before dinner.” 

“And what about my old friend that’s calling on me ?” 
Susan demanded. “Is she to stay penned up in that studio 
till you get back? I’ll have to be after watching it and 
your mother too! Moreover, Miss Mary, there’s throuble 
coming!” 

“Trouble?” Mary paused in her rapid dressing. 

“For you—with your folks,” the old nurse explained. 
“When you are ’round the house, which is little enough, 
you don’t act natural and they’ll be getting on to your 
slipping off to the studio before long! It’s these trips to 
the city near every day though that’s worrying them 
and if you ask me I’d say ’tis them that your mother’s 
sick over. They’ve tried threats and they’ve tried shut¬ 
ting their eyes and pretty soon they’ll try something 
else!” 

“What do you mean?” 


183 


LIBERATION 


184 

'‘They’ll be finding out for themselves where you’re 
going and what you’re doing, and then the saints help 
us all, including that poor young man out there!” Susan 
made a dramatic gesture with a bony arm. “We’ll have 
to be getting him away soon, Miss Mary, or it’ll be too 
late!” 

Mary pondered this as the train bore her cityward. 
She could not but see the wisdom of the loyal, old 
woman’s warning and yet somehow she felt that it 
wouldn’t be necessary. Events seemed to focus about 
that studio at Green Lodge and now she felt that they 
were coming to a head, although she could not have told 
why. They were being drawn swiftly, irresistibly along 
on a current that could not be stemmed now and the end 
must come soon! 

George Lorrin had told her he learned nothing from 
his talk with Wesley, yet he despatched his mother on 
an errand that could only have been suggested to his 
mind by that interview! Why had he lied to her, and 
why delegate to the older woman a task which she her¬ 
self might more successfully have performed for him? 
It couldn’t be that he didn’t trust her; it must therefore 
be that he did not trust Wesley, that Wesley had shown 
in some way that he knew more than he would divulge 
to aid them in this fight. 

Mary set her lips at the thought. George Lorrin would 
not discuss nor criticize the man whose name she bore, 
would not accuse him of withholding knowledge, even 
if he did suspect it. Yet what had he hoped to learn 
about Wesley through the young clerk ? Hill had spoken 
of him in an off-hand way to Mrs. Lorrin, as though 
they had nothing in common;, what had Wesley said 
about Hill to George Lorrin? 


INTO HER OWN HANDS 


185 

It was all a hopeless muddle in her mind, but the girl 
had decided on one immediate course and on leaving the 
station she told her taxi-driver to take her to the Belle¬ 
ville Apartments, the address of the Hill home which 
she had obtained from Mrs. Lorrin just before they sep¬ 
arated. 

The house was an old-fashioned one, but when she 
had pressed the bell in the vestibule and mounted two 
flights of stairs a door opened before her, framing the 
figure of a girl as tall and slender as herself, and in the 
expression on her face Mary forgot her stuffy, mediocre 
surroundings. It was grief-stricken and stained with 
long-dried tears, but the dark eyes were dilated with more 
than fear. Horror looked out of them, and although she 
drew herself up with a start of defiance at sight of a 
stranger, there was an air of entreaty about her that made 
Mary’s voice very gentle as she asked: 

“You are Mrs. Hill? You don’t know me and my 
name would mean nothing to you, but may I come in 
and talk to you for a few minutes ?” 

“What about?” The girl held the door knob with both 
hands, as though she feared it would be forced open. 

“About your husband,” Mary replied frankly. 
“There’s been a terrible mistake made, and he shouldn’t 
have gone away.” 

“What do you know about my husband? Who told 
you he’d gone away?” The girl spoke with fierce 
vehemence, and at her tone a thin wail started up in the 
room back of her. 

“I know he ran away last night because he thinks that 
some one is trying to accuse him of something he didn’t 
do—to frame him.” In attempting to speak as simply 
and plainly as possible Mary recalled the term which this 


LIBERATION 


186 

girl herself had used to Mrs. Lorrin over the telephone 
that morning. “He should have stayed. It was all a 
mistake, he was frightened at nothing, and I think per¬ 
haps I might help you to get him back.” 

The wailing had increased from within and the girl 
glanced hastily over her shoulder, a softer light coming 
into her eyes. 

“How could you help me ?” she asked, but with yield¬ 
ing in her tone. “I guess you don’t know anything more 
about my own husband than I do myself, whoever you 
are!” 

“I don’t.” Mary smiled. “I think I know a little more, 
though, about why he went away. If you want to know 
who I am, my name is Mary Greenough and if you’ll let 
me talk to you, you’ll see that I don’t mean any harm. 
I’ve honestly come as a friend!” 

For a moment the other girl eyed her anxiously, then 
with a sigh that showed she was only half convinced she 
stepped aside. 

“You may as well talk here as in the hall,” she re¬ 
marked. “I declare, I don’t know who to trust! The 
last one that came here said she was a friend of my hus¬ 
band’s mother, and she made all the trouble!” 

Mary ignored the remark but obeyed her hostess’ 
gesture and entered the living-room. It was hideous 
with the usual mission and red cotton rep, characteristic 
of its type, but dim, and cool, and immaculately clean. 
She sank down thankfully in the nearest chair and in the 
next room the monotonous wailing ceased abruptly and 
Mrs. Hill reappeared with a soft, white bundle in her 
arms. 

“Baby’s kind of fretful,” she announced apologetically. 
“It’s the heat, I guess, or else he kind of senses it that 


INTO HER OWN HANDS 187 

I’m worried. He hollers if I lay him down.—What was 
it you wanted to say about my husband?’ 1 

“Mrs. Hill, he’s afraid of somebody!” Mary leaned 
toward her. “If it’s that poor fellow who escaped from 
prison last Monday, he needn’t be; George Lorrin 
wouldn’t hurt him if he could.” 

“Wouldn’t he?” The girl’s lip curled. “Maybe you 
don’t know it’s that Lorrin’s folks that are trying to 
send my husband where he was, now he’s got away!” 

“I know they are not!” Mary retorted with decision. 
“What makes you think they are ?” 

“Yesterday afternoon Dickie called up from the office 
and said not to answer the bell till he got home, that he’d 
something to tell me.” Mrs. Hill waxed suddenly loqua¬ 
cious. “I got scared right away because, though Dickie’s 
been kind of moody always, he’s been worse than ever all 
this week, as if he had something on his mind that was 
worrying him to death! When he came home he told me 
that some old woman had called him up at the office, pre¬ 
tending to be a friend of his mother’s, and wanting to 
come and see him at his home. He said to look out and 
treat her nice, but to let him see her alone, that he thought 
it was some kind of a plant to mix him up in trouble. I 
asked him what trouble, and what had been the matter 
with him all week, but he got mad and wouldn’t talk. 
Well, she came, and I brought her in here and left her 
and him together. She stayed an hour and when she went 
away at last he was just wild! It was then he told me 
about Lorrin and his escaping from prison, and that the 
old woman who’d been here was his mother, trying to 
frame Dickie and put him in her son’s place! I don’t 
know why I’m talking so much, but I just wanted you 
to know I was wise to everything!” 


188 


LIBERATION 


Mary shook her head. 

“Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand what he told 
you? He may have said ‘somebody’ was trying to frame 
him, but he didn’t say it was Mrs. Lorrin, did he?” 

“Well, I took it to mean that, anyway!” Mrs. Hill re¬ 
marked defiantly. 

“There was a mistake, I’m sure,” Mary insisted. 
“How do you know Mrs. Lorrin didn’t come to warn 
him, instead?” 

“Warn him, against who, then?” the girl demanded. 

“The person he was really afraid of, and when 
we’ve found out who that is we can help him, don’t you 
see ?” 

“I don’t!” Mrs. Hill ceased rocking and lowered the 
baby to her lap. “I don’t see where you come in on it all, 
either! There was a girl came to the office too, yester¬ 
day afternoon; a swell, Dickie says, and she wouldn’t 
give her right name, just wrote one down on a card. She 
got in to see Mr. Wharton himself, and Dickie says it 
was about this Lorrin man. He told me that, too, and 
then he broke away from me and ran out of the house! 
I never heard of that forgery business till last night!” 

“But your husband was working for Mr. Wharton 
when it happened, two years ago!” Mary exclaimed. 

“He wasn’t my husband then.” Her tone was more 
soft than Mary had heard it and she glanced down at the 
sleeping bundle on her knees. “I didn’t even know him 
till about three months later when we were both on our 
vacations in the country and we got married when the 
fortnight was up. He’s been a wonderful boy! Quiet, 
and steady, and trying so hard to get on for our sakes! 
He never left me for a single night before now!” 

“But have you tried everywhere ?” Mary asked. “Can’t 


INTO HER OWN HANDS 189 

you think of a friend he might have gone to, a place he 
might be, that you’ve overlooked?” 

“No-o.” The girl’s tone held a shade of uncertainty, 
however. “None I know of, that I could reach.” 

“You mean he may be too far away by now?” Mary’s 
pulses quickened. “You could wire, couldn’t you, or I 
could arrange the fare for your baby and you?” 

“It isn’t that. He might be with a friend of his here 
in the city, but I don’t know the address.” She broke 
off and eyed her visitor with wondering curiosity. “Why 
should you do that for us, pay railroad fare I mean, if 
it was necessary ?” 

“Because,” Mary spoke with a deeper note of earnest¬ 
ness. “I want your husband to be with you, to come 
home! If any one is trying to frame him, it isn’t George 
Lorrin or his people! I live at Ossining, close by the 
prison, and I know him!” 

“You’re a kind of a charity worker there?” The girl 
drew the inference Mary had hoped she would. “You 
know all about his case?” 

“Yes, and I know he is innocent! He may be dead 
now, or recaptured, but his innocence is going to be 
proved to the world! Your husband didn’t commit that 
forgery either, Mrs. Hill, but the guilty person who 
framed Mr. Lorrin first might try now to put the blame 
on him. Do you see now why he must come home? 
Who is this friend you spoke of to whom he may have 
gone in the city?” 

The girl did not at once reply to the question. She 
kept her eyes fixed steadily on her visitor, and only her 
added pallor as the blood ebbed slowly from her cheeks 
and her tightened grasp of the bundle on her lap evi¬ 
denced her emotion. 


19° 


LIBERATION 


“Lorrin was framed!” Her lips barely formed the 
words. “Now they’ll try to put it over on Dickie!” 

“But they can’t if we find out who did forge that check, 
don’t you understand?” Mary cried. “That will save 
your husband and free George Lorrin at the same time! 
You must find your husband and make him come home. 
He’s done the worst possible thing by running away!” 

“You mean for him to face it?” The girl shook her 
head slowly and a little, pitiful smile quivered for an in¬ 
stant about her mouth. “You don’t know Dickie! He’s 
weak, but I don’t love him any the less for it, because he’s 
as easily influenced for good as for bad and I’ve kept him 
straight as a string! He went away scared and he’ll have 
to be worse scared by somebody else before he’ll come 
back!” 

Mrs. Lorrin’s words returned to Mary’s mind: . . 

frighten the truth out of him. George said he was the 
kind to tell on anybody to save himself.” She must make 
one final effort. 

“If you’ve had such influence over him since your mar¬ 
riage you’ll have it now, Mrs. Hill! Tell me who this 
friend is and I’ll find out his address for you and let you 
know. When you get your husband back I want you to 
persuade him to come out and see me at my home, Green 
Lodge. For his own protection he ought to join with the 
people who are working to clear George Lorrin so that 
the blame can be placed where it belongs. The truth will 
be known anyway, for powerful people are interested now, 
among them Mr. Wharton himself, and if your husband 
has the least suspicion and doesn’t speak it will hurt his 
whole future. Who is this friend?” 

“He’s Mr. Coyle,” the girl said slowly. “I don’t know 


INTO HER OWN HANDS 


191 

his first name and it’s funny how him and Dickie came 
to be such friends, for he’s a regular swell. ,, 

“ ‘Mr. Coyle,’ ” Mary repeated. “Has he a private 
residence or does he live at a hotel?” 

“At some club.” Mrs. Hill had overcome her reluc¬ 
tance. “I don’t care if he is mad at being bothered by us, 
I’ve got to find Dickie! I don’t know the name of the 
club and he’s never invited Dickie there, though he 
’phoned to him a couple of times.” 

“Mr. Coyle telephoned your husband?” 

“No, Dickie ’phoned him; once when the installment 
money was overdue on our furniture, and again when the 
doctor for baby sent his bill,” the girl explained frankly. 
“Mr. Coyle was awful kind about lending the money, and 
Dickie’d done him a favor once, so I didn’t feel so bad 
about it.” 

“What kind of a favor?” Mary asked quickly. 

“I don’t know.” She shook her head again. “I never 
could see what favor a fellow in Dickie’s position could 
do for a swell like Mr. Coyle, but he’s certainly a friend. 
He sent us some real silver when we were married— 
knives and forks and things—and he gave baby a set of 
little gold pins from Harlier’s. Look!” 

She unwrapped the bundle, turned the sleeping baby 
over and displayed the three little pins which held its 
dainty frock together on its back. 

“They’re very pretty,” Mary said absently, then added: 
“You’ve met Mr. Coyle, of course. What does he look 
like?” 

“Only once. He never came to see us, we didn’t ex¬ 
pect it, but one day last summer we were taking a walk 
in the park along near the bridle path and he came riding 


LIBERATION 


192 

by. My, he’s handsome! Not so tall when he’s standing 
up, maybe, but he sat that horse like he was sitting on 
top of the world!” There was naive admiration in the 
girl’s tone. “He’s got dark hair and eyes and a little, 
short-trimmed mustache, and the loveliest voice you ever 
heard, like a minister’s, only not preachy.” 

Mary opened her lips as though to speak but no sound 
issued from them. Inwardly her brain, her every sense, 
was crying out in negation, in an instinctive effort to 
thrust aside the evidence of her own ears. But the other 
girl was talking on volubly now. 

“He didn’t see Dickie till he’d hollered at him twice; 
then he pulled up and Dickie introduced me, and though 
you could see he was bothered about something his man¬ 
ner was just grand! I thought, seeing that Dickie called 
on him those two times when we were in trouble, he 
might have gone to him now. Anyway, that’s the only 
one I can think—oh, there’s baby’s food boiling over!” 

She started up as a sizzling sound came from the 
kitchen and Mary held out her arms. 

“Let me take him for you! He looks like such a dar¬ 
ling!” 

The soft bundle was thrust upon her lap and the girl 
hurried out to the kitchen, to return in a few minutes 
with a nursing bottle. 

“I had to heat the last that I had on ice for him,” she 
explained apologetically. “I didn’t get to prepare it early 
this morning, I was so worried!” 

The baby awoke when it was transferred to its mother, 
but its fretting subsided into contented gurgles when the 
bottle reached the tiny, rosy lips, and Mary asked in a 
low, constrained tone: 

“Is that all you can tell me about Mr. Coyle? You 


INTO HER OWN HANDS 


i93 

don't know his business or where your husband met 
him?” 

“No, only that they've known each other a long time. 
I don't think Dickie ever said anything more about him. 
It isn't very much to go on, is it ?” She spoke with wist¬ 
ful eagerness. “If he don’t come back I believe I'll just 
die!” 

“Oh, he’ll come back!” Mary assured her with forced 
cheerfulness, and rose. “Don’t forget my message to 
him and where he can find me: Green Lodge, Ossining. 
Tell him that it means he shan’t be framed! Meantime 
you’ll hear from me if I can locate Mr. Coyle. Good- 
by!” 

It seemed an age before the door of the little apart¬ 
ment closed behind her, and she was compelled to resist 
the impulse to run down the stairs. The two flights 
seemed unending but at last she stood in the streets, 
bright and glaring Under the noonday sun. Without a 
backward glance she hastened to the nearest bus line and 
climbed aboard the first which was headed downtown, 
huddling herself in its stuffy interior in spite of the 
stifling heat. 

Events were indeed hurrying her on her course and 
now she did not want to look ahead, in shrinking horror 
of the thought that possessed her. Was young Hill the 
forger and Wesley shielding him because of some secret, 
wretched thing in the past ? Hill had applied to him for 
money in a way that looked like blackmail, and she could 
not doubt from the description that “Coyle” and the man 
she had married were one and the same. Why had he 
adopted an alias? Could it be that in his own life there 
had been something criminal, that he was the more piti¬ 
less to a man who had suffered unjustly? 


194 


LIBERATION 


She had assured the young wife that Hill was not 
guilty, she had all but promised him immunity if he 
would come to her, but she had honestly believed that he 
had merely suspicion or knowledge of the real forger. 
Now if he were guilty himself, as principal or accomplice, 
he must be brought to justice no matter what revenge he 
took upon the man whose protection he had compelled. 

Then a revulsion of feeling came and Mary grew angry 
at herself. Why should she have taken it for granted 
that Coyle and Wesley were the same man ? Mrs. Hill’s 
description would tally with the appearance of a thousand 
others in the city. They had been in the same office but 
Hill himself said he hardly knew him, and it was only 
a fancy of her silly brain, she had no proof! 

But she would soon have proof, one way or the other! 
It was in her own hands and she clenched them tightly, 
for in the palm of one, beneath her glove, she held a tiny 
gold pin! 


CHAPTER XVIII 


EXPLAINED 

I N the fashionable shopping center of town Mary de¬ 
scended from the bus and made her way to the line 
of telephone booths in one of the great hotels tower¬ 
ing above the stores. It was after one o’clock but she 
finally located Wesley King at a lunch club in the finan¬ 
cial district. 

“Mary?” His resonant voice held surprise mingled 
with half-incredulous joy. “I scarcely dared hope that 
you’d let me hear from you after our misunderstanding 
Thursday night!” 

“Misunderstanding?” she queried coldly. 

“Of course you must have realized by now that I was 
only joking!” he expostulated. “I admit, dear, that it 
was in decidedly bad taste, and you are such a serious, 
literal-minded, little woman that I should have remem¬ 
bered, but surely you know-” 

“It was in bad taste, Wesley, but never mind about 
that now,” she interrupted. “I’m in town and there’s 
something I’d like to talk over with you.” 

“Heaven knows I want to see you, dear!” he cried 
quickly. “Wherever you are, I’ll come at once and take 
you to lunch.” 

“Thanks, I’ve had mine,” Mary replied with a little 
shudder of distaste. “I’d like to see you quite alone. 
Would you care to meet me when you have finished and 



LIBERATION 


196 

take me for a little spin through the park? I’ll be here in 
the Rose Room at the Golconda Hotel.” 

“I’d love it, dearest! I’ve so much to say to you too! 
I’ve been working on the matter you asked me to and I 
think I’ll have something to tell you!” 

“I think so, too, Wesley,” she responded quietly. “In 
an hour, then.” 

Leaving him to ponder over her last words, she rang 
off and crossed the Avenue to a small but somberly rich 
shop which bore the name of “Harlier” in discreet bronze 
lettering. For a moment she paused, clutching within her 
glove the little gold pin, and then entered with her usual 
air of unconscious dignity. 

When she emerged twenty minutes later the soft pal¬ 
lor of her face was tinged with bluish shadows about her 
firmly compressed lips and dull wide eyes. She stag¬ 
gered slightly as a wave of heat rose stiflingly from 
the pavement, and the moving line of motors wavered 
before her vision, but the moment of weakness passed and 
she turned the corner to enter a small but exclusive tea 
room which her mother sometimes patronized. 

Two of the latter’s friends were there now and Mary 
bowed and smiled mechanically as she passed their table 
but avoided the white-gloved hand outstretched to de¬ 
tain her. Food she must have and stimulation to carry 
her through the forthcoming interview, for she knew 
that she would be compelled to call upon all her resources, 
but the tea was bitter and the dainty sandwiches and 
cakes she ordered were tasteless in her mouth. What 
would Wesley King volunteer to tell her? What would 
he say when she faced him with what she had learned ? 
She knew that he was low-minded, vicious, pettily re- 


EXPLAINED 


197 

vengeful—was he utterly without honor? What hidden 
acts lay in the past of this man for whom she had so 
lightly been ready to cast off her family and all that had 
gone to make up her serene, sheltered life! 

As she approached the hotel once more she saw the 
familiar, flamboyant, red car drawn up at the side street 
entrance and Wesley King himself greeted her in the 
foyer of the Rose Room. 

“I was so afraid I had missed you!” He spoke in a 
low, conventionally courteous tone, but she could feel his 
eyes devouring her. “I stopped to have the tank filled 
and that took a few minutes, but I have a plan in mind.” 

“Yes?” Mary forced herself to answer as she with¬ 
drew her hand from his. “Will you tell me in the car? 
The heat has been rather overpowering to-day and I'd 
like to go where it is quiet and comparatively cool.” 

“Come, then. You must be exhausted!” His voice 
shook a trifle but he said nothing more as he stepped aside 
for her to precede him and when they were settled in 
the machine she forestalled him. 

“Don't let’s try to talk now, in all this traffic and 
noise. Wait-” 

“Just let me tell you my plan, darling!” he pleaded. 
“The park is torrid and wilting—were you going 
straight back to Green Lodge after you leave me?” 

“Of course,” she glanced at him inquiringly. 

“Then won’t you allow me to drive you as near home 
as I may until—until all this secrecy is over? I can get 
you to the Scarborough station in time to meet the train 
that leaves here at three-eleven, even by taking the back 
roads where we won’t encounter any of your people’s 
acquaintances, and you’ll be spared that stuffy trip, at 



LIBERATION 


198 

least.” King bent forward striving to look under her 
hat brim, for she had averted her face from him. 
“Please, dearest! Is it so much to ask of my wife?” 

Mary hesitated. Most of their circle would be at the 
country club and she would be nearer home, at least, 
when their interview was over. 

“Very well,” she said, finally. “It will be better, per¬ 
haps, than the park.” 

As though he sensed something strained and taut in 
her bearing, King said no more until they had left the 
city behind them and were whirling through the suburbs 
toward the open country. Then he asked casually: 

“Is Lorrin still safe?” 

“Quite.” Mary was glad that he had opened the sub¬ 
ject at last and she half turned toward him. “You said 
you had something to tell me?” 

“Something that you’ll approve of, I think. It was 
your own suggestion. You see.” His hand left the 
wheel to close over hers and although she shrank in¬ 
wardly, Mary endured his touch with apparent passivity. 
“When you ran from me in the grove the other night and 
I realized that I’d offended you again, driven you from 
me, I was almost mad! It seemed to me that this sep¬ 
aration between us would continue indefinitely if you held 
me to my bargain, for honestly, dear, I didn’t see how I 
could carry out such a task! It looked hopeless, as I 
told you and Lorrin frankly, and after you left us he 
couldn’t tell me anything that would help. I was pretty 
desperate when I returned to the city, and then I thought 
of your idea that I go straight to Wharton and tell him 
I thought he was wrong about that forgery!” 

“You—Wharton!” Mary stared. 

“That’s it!” He nodded, smiling. “I faced him in 


EXPLAINED 199 

his office and told him I was going to prove Lorrin’s in¬ 
nocence !” 

“When did you see him?” Mary asked faintly. 

“Yesterday morning. He tried to bluff and bluster, 
but I could see I had him going and when I get a shred 
of evidence to take to him he’ll come in with us, climb 
on the band-wagon, so to speak, in order not to be left 
in the role of an unjust persecutor!” 

King paused as though awaiting commendation but 
Mary merely queried: 

“Have you your ‘shred of evidence’ yet, Wesley?” 

“My dear child, can I produce it from empty air?” he 
asked in his turn, reproachfully. “With nothing to go 
upon yet, where could I get this evidence ?” 

Mary drew a deep breath and her brows lifted a trifle 
as she gazed straight into his face. 

“I thought perhaps from Richard Hill,” she announced 
quietly. “Where have you hidden him, Wesley?” 

The car swerved but he jerked it savagely back toward 
the center of the road. 

“Hill!” he echoed. “What on earth do you mean, 
Mary?” 

“Just what I say,” she replied evenly. “Hill went to 
you last night after Mrs. Lorrin had told him what we 
learned about him-” 

“So it was Lorrin’s mother who told you—” he 
broke off and added in a careful tone: “Why should 
she or you think he would come to me ? Why, he’s just 
a clerk in Wharton’s outer office, a fellow I hardly know! 
I saw him there yesterday morning and didn’t even shake 
hands with him! So she’s been hounding him, then, and 
because he’s keeping out of her way she thinks he’s in 
hiding somewhere? Really, Mary, the poor woman’s 



200 


LIBERATION 


mind must be a little deranged by her troubles. What 
an extraordinary thing she should imagine he would come 
to me!” 

“She doesn’t,” Mary assured him, fighting to keep back 
the sudden trembling that seized her. “It's another 
woman, Hill’s wife, who believes that he went to you!” 

“Hill’s wife!” King turned the car abruptly under the 
shade of a group of trees by the side of the road. “Look 
here, Mary, let’s have this out! Some one has certainly 
been filling your head with the weirdest nonsense! I 
never knew he had a wife, or anything else about him!” 

“What favor did Richard Hill grant you that gave 
him a hold over you? Why has he gone to you for 
money whenever he needed it—blackmail, they call it, 
don’t they? You gave them a wedding present, though 
you had never met his wife, and when you did you were 
introduced to her under a false name! Hill called to you 
twice that day in the park before you would obey and 
stop, and you were furious that you had to meet his wife 
at all!” The \yords were coming now in a rush from 
Mary’s pale lips. “What does he know of the forgery 
for which George Lorrin was sent to prison ? What does 
he know about you, that forces you to shield him at the 
expense of that innocent man? I want the truth, ‘Mr. 
Coyle’!” 

“Mary, either you are mad or I am!” King took off 
his cap and ran his hand distractedly through his dark 
hair. “Who is ‘Coyle’ ? Has some one tried to make you 
believe that I ever posed under that name, or any other 
not my own ? I don’t understand, the whole thing’s amaz- 
ing!” 

“It was, to me!” Mary remarked. 

“My dear girl, it’s all a mistake? Young Hill never 


EXPLAINED 


201 


did me a favor in his life! I tell you, I scarcely remem¬ 
bered him when I walked into the office yesterday! I 
never gave him a cent, much less a wedding present, and 
I don't know what you mean about a meeting in the 
park!" King was stammering in seemingly candid be¬ 
wilderment, but Mary noticed that his hands were grip¬ 
ping the motionless wheel until the stitching on his gloves 
was strained. “I don’t believe he knows a thing about 
that forgery, he never struck me as being clever enough 
for that, and I’m certainly not shielding him at the ex¬ 
pense of any one! Where in the world did you hear this 
wild tale ?" 

“From several sources, one a jewelry salesman at Har- 
lier’s,” Mary answered distinctly. “That was the one 
mistake ‘Mr. Coyle’ made when he gave the Hill’s baby 
a set of little gold pins, he charged them to your account! 
Here is one of them. Do you recognize it?" 

King glanced down at the tiny, gleaming bar in her 
hand and then straight before him, and a long silence 
fell. Mary slipped the pin into her purse and waited. 
Would he try further evasion now? He had lied to her 
deliberately already; would he try to hoodwink her 
again ? 

But when at last Wesley King turned to her there was 
a shamed, pained look in his eyes and his voice was very 
low. 

“Mary, I never meant that you should know! It’s 
nothing really wrong, dear, nothing disgraceful! It’s 
done by the biggest men every day, a mere matter of 
business. Your father himself will tell you so, when he 
has forgiven us, and I can talk it over freely with him, 
in your presence. It wasn’t only that I was afraid you, 
with your puritanical ideas, would misunderstand, but 


202 


LIBERATION 


no man wants the girl he loves to know that he was ever 
a failure. I don’t know how you learned about it, but 
you’ll have to know the truth now!” 

“I am glad you acknowledge that!” Mary exclaimed. 
Failure? Business? Her brain was reeling. Could it 
be that there was really nothing disgraceful nor wrong, 
after all? He had lied; was he lying now? 

“There’s one thing I want to say first!” His voice 
had steadied and his eyes gazed straight into hers. 
“Don’t misjudge Dick Hill. He did do me a big favor 
once, and when he told me he’d settle down, had given 
up the bright lights and was going to marry a nice girl, 
I sent him a set of table silver with my blessing as a wed¬ 
ding present. He never blackmailed me, but he did come 
to me once or twice when he was in a little financial worry 
over domestic affairs and I was glad to help him out. I 
never had any particular desire to meet his wife for we 
weren’t what you might call social friends—she was a 
salesgirl or model in some shop, I understand—but I 
hadn’t the least reason in the world for avoiding her, and 
I wasn’t annoyed at being introduced to her, it was the 
way it was done!” 

“As 'Mr. Coyle’?” Mary asked frigidly, but she could 
feel the tension relaxing within her. Wesley did appear 
to be telling the truth! His story so far tallied with that 
of Mrs. Hill. What if she had judged him too hastily, 
after all! 

“Exactly.” There was a humble, abashed note in his 
tones now and his eyes were averted from her. “To ex¬ 
plain that I’ll have to go back to the beginning. While I 
was treasurer of some estates in old J. W.’s hands I 
wasn’t supposed to gamble in any way, particularly in the 
stock market, but I did! The fever was in my blood!” 


EXPLAINED 


203 

“You were treasurer—and you gambled!” Mary's 
voice choked with horror and King ejaculated hastily: 

“Good Heavens, not with funds entrusted to me, if that 
is what you mean! Mary, how' can you have such a 
despicable opinion of me? I used my own money, of 
course, a few thousands that I’d saved or had left to me. 
All this happened nearly a year before—before Lorrin’s 
trouble. I don’t believe you know anything about the 
Wall Street game, but it was the old story. I speculated 
and lost! I had sense enough at the last, though, when 
I saw how things were bound to go, not to throw the 
little capital I had left into the same sinking boat and 
when I was wiped out I owed my brokers four times as 
much as the little I had saved from the wreck. In order 
to pay them in full I had to have that to operate with; 
you can’t make money without a certain amount to start 
with. If they’d known I had any assets at all they could 
have taken them from me, of course, and charged the 
rest of my account to profit and loss, but I was deter¬ 
mined to pay them every penny! I had to keep that 
money some way—are you trying to understand, dear ? It 
isn’t easy to tell you!” 

“Go on,” Mary said quietly. “I am listening. Where 
does ‘Mr. Coyle’ come in?” 

“Right here!” King squared his shoulders. “If I kept 
a bank account of my own the brokers could have at¬ 
tacked it. I had no intimate friends whom I would ask 
to open an account for me under their names—and then 
I thought of Dick Hill, in our office. He was a happy- 
go-lucky sort of chap, fun-loving, always living beyond 
his means, a trifle—well, dissipated perhaps, but just an 
overgrown boy. He was constantly playing practical 
jokes around the office and I knew that with his irrespon- 


204 


LIBERATION 


sible nature he would be willing to take it on for me and 
think it rather a lark. I approached him about it and he 
looked on it just as I had figured he would, but he was 
as much in debt almost as I and didn’t dare keep a bank 
account in his own name. He opened one for me under 
the name of ‘Coyle/ I don’t know how he came to hit 
upon it!” 

He paused again and glanced at her pleadingly, but as 
she did not speak he went on: 

“Don’t you see, Mary? If I’d turned that money over 
to my brokers, even though it was rightfully theirs then, 
they would never have recovered the rest, but as it was I 
skyrocketed that small capital, doubled and trebled and 
quadrupled it, and then more! I paid them back every 
cent and stood on my own feet again! It took me more 
than a year to do it, but when at last I was well out of the 
woods I left old J. W. and went on speculating for my¬ 
self but in a more conservative way, and I—we’re on the 
way to having a comfortable fortune, dear! I felt I owed 
a good part of it to Dick Hill, but every time he saw me 
afterwards he thought it a fine joke to rag me about that 
‘Coyle’ matter and I wanted to forget it! It was a case of 
the end justifying the means, if ever there was one, but I 
never wanted any one to know about it. That day in the 
park when Hill introduced me to his wife as ‘Mr. Coyle’ 
I was furious, as you remarked; to travel under an alias 
was abhorrent but to explain to her would have been out 
of the question! Do you see the predicament in which 
I was placed? I simply had to let the misunderstanding 
go on and pray that I never encountered her again!” 

Mary was thinking rapidly. His story was plausible 
enough and there were no discrepancies with the former 
one she had heard—but he had lied! 


EXPLAINED 


205 

“Wesley,” she began, at length, “I wish with all my 
heart that I could believe you, but you tried to lie to me. 
How can I have faith in your word?” 

“At first, you mean, when you spoke of Hill’s wife?” 
he asked eagerly. “I was trying to keep the truth from 
you, dear, afraid it would distress you, widen the breach 
between us! There was nothing wrong, as you see, and 
it belonged to the past, forgotten! Surely you can for¬ 
give that!” 

“I was thinking of something else,” Mary remarked 
slowly. “Do you know what some one said about you? 
That you would never go far—you were too clever and 
not wise enough. I’m beginning to see what he meant.” 

“He ? Who!” King flushed hotly. “Who’s the man 
and to whom was that opinion expressed, I should like 
to know!” 

“The man was Mr. Wharton—‘old J. W.,’ as you call 
him, and he said it to me!” 

“Wharton said that—to you!” The flush deepened. 
“When ? Where did you meet him ?” 

“Yesterday afternoon, in his office, Wesley.” There 
was a weary, hopeless note in her tone. 

“You went to Wharton’s office—to discuss me!” he 
broke out harshly. Then with an effort he restrained 
himself. “You are my wife, Mary; nothing can change 
that! Was that the act of a wife, even in name?” 

“I did not go there to discuss you, but to learn what 
I could that might help prove George Lorrin’s innocence,” 
Mary disclaimed with dignity. “In reviewing the case 
Mr. Wharton happened to mention that you urged him 
to make an example of George Lorrin for the good of 
the office. Had you told me this I wouldn’t have asked 
your help now and you would have been spared the 


206 


LIBERATION 


necessity of lying to me. Mr. Wharton has not seen you 
for more than a year.” 

King muttered an ejaculation under his breath and for 
a moment was silent. Then he said in a strained tone: 

“Yes, I lied to you! You forced me to, for you gave 
me an impossible duty to perform, an unfair one! I 
didn't know Lorrin personally, but from the face of the 
evidence which Wharton laid before me in conference at 
the time I was convinced of Lorrin’s guilt, just as the 
jury later confirmed my opinion. I acted as any honest 
man would have done, I urged that he be made to answer 
for it, and I am not ashamed of it! Now you believe 
Lorrin to be innocent and for your sake I am giving him 
the benefit of the doubt. I’m willing to do anything I 
can to find evidence against some one else, but I am not 
a detective and this would tax the resources of the great¬ 
est of them! Great Heavens, Mary, do you realize what 
you are doing? You are making an issue of this be¬ 
tween us—between husband and wife! I told you I’d 
seen Wharton because you suggested it and I wanted to 
placate you till I’d made some real headway, but I knew 
it would be the worst move possible. Lorrin himself 
couldn’t give me the slightest lead; I told you that! Tell 
me what to do and I’ll do it!” 

“Did Hill go to you last night?” she asked bluntly. 
“Don’t lie any more, Wesley; it won’t be of the least use.” 

“God knows I shan’t!” he declared fervently. “Dick 
Hill did not come to me! I haven’t seen him in four or 
five months. If he has gone away I know nothing about 
it, nor why.” 

“I saw him yesterday in Mr. Wharton’s office. He 
looked like a man pursued by ghosts! Fear was written on 
his face. He watched me through the glass panel during 


EXPLAINED 


207 

my interview with Mr. Wharton. Last night Mrs. Lor- 
rin called at his home and asked him what he knew of the 
forgery.” Mary was stating the facts in their order as 
coldly and methodically as a lawyer might have done. 
“When she had gone he told his wife that he was, to use 
his expression, ‘being framed’ and rushed from the house. 
He has not been seen since. His wife knows of no one 
to whom he could have gone but his friend ‘Mr. Coyle/ 
Wesley, are you hiding him now because of his help in 
that unlawful bank account?” 

“Before Heaven, no!” he exclaimed. “Are you sure 
of what you have told me? Dick is weak, irresponsible, 
but not bad! He hasn’t any criminal tendencies, any dis¬ 
honest ones, and if he had—well, I imagine that forgery 
must take a certain amount of skill, and nerve, and clever¬ 
ness. Dick Hill doesn’t possess any of these things! I’ll 
never believe he is guilty!” 

“Then why did he run away?” 

“Because he was scared, I suppose—if he has actually 
run away! He’s settled down, got a fine little family 
and naturally doesn’t want to be dragged into a sordid 
mess like this! Why Mrs. Lorrin should have gone to 
him, of all the other office employees, I can’t understand! 
Who on earth put such an idea into her head?” 

Mary did not reply, and after a glance at her immovable 
face King shrugged. 

“Well, I can’t say anything more, Mary. I’ve told you 
everything I know, everything! You must believe it or 
not as you please.” He made a movement as though to 
start the engine again, but Mary stopped him. 

“Hill ran away because, if he did not commit the 
forgery himself, he knows who did and is afraid to speak! 
If he didn’t go to you last night find him and bring him 


208 


LIBERATION 


to me! You offered just now to do anything I asked; 
bring Richard Hill to me!” 

“Mary!” King pleaded. “If his wife doesn’t know 
where he is and the office can give no information, how 
can you expect me to find him? Don’t you see how 
utterly unreasonable, unfair, you are, my dear? I’ve 
known nothing of his friends, his habits, since he mar¬ 
ried. I can’t go to his wife as ‘Coyle’ and offer my as¬ 
sistance, but if you will take a check to her from me— 
you’ve been in touch with her, of course—and tell her to 
make whatever use of it she pleases in order to locate her 
husband-” 

Mary shook her head. 

“All the money she needs is at her disposal, Wesley. 
Her husband went to you before when he was in trouble; 
why not now?” 

“You mean that you doubt my word?” he began bit¬ 
terly. “I can’t blame you, I suppose, after my lie about 
seeing Wharton, so we’re at an impasse! You ask me 
to find a man whose own wife and closest associates can’t 
locate; a man with whom I haven’t been in touch for 
months. He may even be out of the country by now and 
the world is wide; am I to search it? If he should come 
to me I shall bring him to you. That is all I can promise, 
but I swear to you that I know no more where he is now 
than I know who committed that forgery!” 



CHAPTER XIX 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 

T HEY drove the rest of the way to Scarborough 
in silence, and Mary descended at the station 
just as her train pulled in. There was only time 
for King to clasp her hand, and she averted her eyes to 
avoid the entreaty in his. Each had said all that could 
be said between them for the moment, and during the 
five-minute run to Ossining she rested, feeling that never 
in all her life had she been so utterly worn and weary. 

On reaching home at last she found that her mother 
was up, but pale and listless; and she kissed her with a 
stab of compunction, mentioning vaguely a visit to the 
shops in town and the friends she had encountered in the 
tearoom. Behind Mrs. Greenough, Susan was making 
mysterious gestures in the doorway, and as soon as Mary 
could end the brief, constrained conversation, she went up 
to her room, with her old nurse at her heels. 

“Miss Mary.” Susan shut the door and stood with her 
angular shoulders against it. “Your—the young gentle¬ 
man is fair wild to see you, and it’s threatening to leave, 
he is! ’Twas something his mother said to him this 
morning, Fm thinking; and when I got her away at last 
and went to take him a bit of hot lunch, every wan being 
out o’ the way, he asked could he see you. I told him 
you’d gone to the city and he said would I ask you to 
let him speak to you the minute you got back. He looked 
like something had hit him straight between the eyes!” 
209 


210 


LIBERATION 


“Father isn’t home yet?” 

“No, Miss Mary. He ’phoned he’d be back in time for 
dinner, though.” 

“Then I’d better go to the studio now,” Mary sighed. 
“Try to keep mother’s attention engaged, and I’ll slip in 
again as soon as I can, Susan.” 

The emotions of the day and the added strain through 
which she had just passed during her interview with 
Wesley King had left her limp and too exhausted to 
think. What urgent message George Lorrin could have 
for her it was impossible to imagine, and how much of 
what she had learned must she tell him ? He had a right 
to know, of course, and yet she bore Wesley’s name, 
she owed him a duty that must not be ignored. 

Nils was in the garden and she was forced to make a 
detour back of the glen, but though there was no sign of 
life from the studio the door opened silently for a few 
inches before her as she mounted the porch steps, and 
she found George Lorrin waiting on the wide, cold 
hearthstone. 

“I was sure it must be you!” He advanced with out¬ 
stretched hand and she saw that he was haggard and 
hollow-eyed once more. “I’m sorry to ask you to run 
this added risk, but I felt that I must see you!” 

“I’ve just returned from the city,” Mary explained as 
she took the chair he drew forward for her. “The news 
your mother brought this morning was distressing?” 

“She said she had talked with you first, told you every¬ 
thing!” He passed his hand over his eyes. “I didn’t 
mean that she should! I didn’t mean that you should be 
dragged any further into this miserable affair of mine 
than you have been already!” 

“Why?” Mary’s eyes opened wide but there was a 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 


211 


sudden, deeper shadow in them, “You know that we— 
she and I—are working together!” 

“You must not!” A hoarse note had come into his 
low tones. “I said to you once before, Miss Mary, in 
Mr. King’s presence, that I would prefer not to have you 
make the attempt and I—my mother’s news means more 
to me than I can explain! It has put a different face on 
the matter entirely, and I’m going to ask you to drop the 
investigation!” 

“To—drop-” Mary’s voice failed her. 

“Yes! I—I want to try to get away if I can, and 
disappear!” He spoke with a sort of desperate earnest¬ 
ness that she could not mistake. “I shall have to take my 
chances sooner or later and it must be without further 
loss of time. I can never forget, never be sufficiently 
grateful!” 

“But you can’t mean this!” Mary exclaimed. “Surely 
you aren’t giving up hope now, when we’ve something 
definite to go upon at last! You don’t know what I’ve 
done, I haven’t had an opportunity to tell you, but I’ve 
seen Hill!” 

“You’ve seen him?” Lorrin groaned. “For Heaven’s 
sake, where? I was afraid of this when you went to the 
city to-day, but my mother told me he had gone away!” 

“He has. It was yesterday that I saw him, in Mr. 
Wharton’s office, but I saw then in his face and the way 
he watched me that he was afraid of something and sus¬ 
pected my errand, though, of course, he didn’t know me. 
Mr. Lorrin, will you tell me why you didn’t want me to 
find him?” 

“Because I want to drop the investigation,” he re¬ 
sponded doggedly, a deep flush creeping slowly over his 
pale face. “I’ve changed my mind and the worse of it is 




212 


LIBERATION 


that I can’t explain! I know this must seem inexplicable 
to you, and wretchedly ungrateful after all you have done, 
but I don’t want the truth ever to come out!” 

“But you escaped in order to prove your innocence!” 
Mary said slowly, thunderstruck at his attitude. “You’ve 
lived just for that, and your mother—you know what it 
means to her! If you’re captured you’ll be taken back 
and you’ll never leave those walls again alive!” 

“Perhaps! I can’t help that!” He shrugged. “It’s 
a chance I’ll have to take, and I can’t impose further 
on your hospitality. I shall have to ask you to let me 
go and forget that I ever appealed to your generosity.” 

“That is preposterous!” Mary had started upright in 
her chair. “Do you think I’ll permit you to do such a mad 
thing, that I’ll stop now?” 

“You must!” There was a look of unutterable sad¬ 
ness but decision in the glance he bent upon her. “I 
would rather have my name branded forever! Please 
don’t ask me any questions, I—I can’t stand it! I can’t 
answer them, I can only thank you and go!” 

“Don’t you realize what it would mean?” Mary’s 
voice broke with sudden pleading. “If you should 
manage to get away you’ll have to live in hiding always, 
hunted, afraid of being found out in every minute of all 
the days and years to come! Richard Hill knows some¬ 
thing, even if he wasn’t actually concerned in that for¬ 
gery! I’m sure of it, I saw his wife to-day, and I know 
he could clear you if he would!” 

“I don’t want to be cleared!” His hands clenched and 
she saw the sweat stand out upon his forehead. “I’d 
rather live for the rest of my life hidden and hunted, I’d 
rather go back to prison, than have any one else charged 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 


213 

with this crime! That is the truth, Miss Mary! I don’t 
want my innocence proved!” 

“Then you know who is guilty!” Mary accused him. 
“You’re trying to shield him! But why? Why?” 

“I don’t know! I don’t want to!” he declared. “I 
simply don’t want the matter gone into any further!” 

“Then if you don’t know, you suspect!” Mary paid 
no heed to his protestation. “Have you told your mother 
of this? Is she willing to have you sacrifice yourself?” 

“I meant to write her when—if I got safely away,” he 
muttered. 

“And break her heart?” Mary’s indignant tones were 
as firm with decision as his had been. “You shall not do 
this thing! I mean to find Hill if I have to engage detec¬ 
tives—I’ll wring the truth out of him!” 

“And do me the greatest injury that any one could in 
this world!” he interrupted her. “Greater even than the 
jury that sent me to prison!” 

For a long minute there was silence between them, 
while Mary sat with averted eyes, her dazed mind striv¬ 
ing to grasp the import of this change of front. He 
did know or at least suspect the identity of the forger 
and he was willing, anxious to protect him at the ex¬ 
pense of his own vindication—his life itself, if he were 
discovered attempting to escape! If Hill were not the 
forger, he knew who was; why should George Lorrin 
protect him against his own honor, his mother’s relief 
from the long years of mental torture and disgrace? 
Surely no friendship was worth such a sacrifice—could it 
be something more than friendship, more than self, more 
than filial love? 

“Mr. Lorrin,” she said gently. “You say that you 


214 


LIBERATION 


cannot explain, but will you answer one question? I 
shall ask nothing more. You say that it would do a great 
injury to have the truth known. Would it be to you or to 
some one else?” 

“To me through some one else, Miss Mary,” he replied. 
“Through an innocent person who would suffer more 
than I have, more than I should if I were taken back to¬ 
night ! I didn’t mean to tell you, but I see I must try to 
make you understand; it’s your right after all you’ve 
done to help me.” 

“And your mother; she is innocent of any wrong. 
Would this other person’s suffering be worse than hers ?” 
Mary forgot her promise, forgot everything except the 
dull, hopeless pain that had clutched at her heart. There 
could be only one person in all the world for whom a 
man would make such a sacrifice, and she must know! 

Lorrin turned and walked to the window where he 
stood well back behind the screening curtain which Susan 
had hung there, his head bowed. Mary thought she saw 
his shoulders heave once, but when he turned to her again 
his face bore no trace of emotion. 

“If my mother knew of my decision and the motive 
which actuated it, she would be the first to tell me that 
I had taken the right course,” he said with simple dignity. 
“Indeed, Miss Mary, I have no other. The innocent 
person who would suffer most is—very dear to me!” 

Mechanically Mary rose from her chair. All sense, all 
feeling seemed to have left her, except the desire to get 
away, to fly from his presence. It was ended! There 
was nothing more to be said. He must make this mon¬ 
strous sacrifice and she could only stand aside! 

“I understand.” Her tone was dull and lifeless. “I 
didn’t before, but it must be as you wish, of course. It 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 


215 

remains only to get you away as quickly and far as we 
can, only—it would be very dreadful, a tragedy, if you 
might be mistaken, after all! You’re very sure this step 
is necessary?” 

“Very sure. I wish with all my soul that there could 
be a possibility of a mistake but there isn’t!” His drawn 
lips quivered with the tensity of the white lines about 
them. 

“Does this person, who is dear to you, know the 
truth, and the stand you have taken?” She lifted her 
eyes to his, and he shook his head. 

“No one must ever know!” 

“Do you think it is fair to make any one unknowingly 
accept such a hideous sacrifice ?” 

“It is the only thing that I can do,” he responded 
quietly. “I have no alternative.” 

“Then arrangements shall be made for you to go as 
soon as it is safe.” Somehow Mary managed to advance 
a step or two toward him and hold out her hand. “There 
is no need in running unnecessary risks, and you may 
have to be patient for a little while longer, but we shall 
contrive somehow to get you far away. Susan will 
come to you in an hour or so.” 

She felt his hand clasp hers in gratitude, heard his 
stammered thanks and then somehow she was alone out in 
the leafy green of the grove, groping blindly as she made 
her way between the trees, careless for once if she were 
seen or not. This woman who was dear to him, had she 
a brother or father who had committed the forgery, in 
whose stead George Lorrin must continue to suffer in this 
mad, quixotic idea of self-sacrifice? He and Richard 
Hill had been at least office acquaintances; had Hill a sis¬ 
ter? What difference did it make? How he must love 


216 


LIBERATION 


her, this other woman! Would she ever know the great¬ 
ness of what he had done ? 

Nils had gone to the greenhouses and Mary wandered 
into the house, hearing her mother’s voice on the veranda 
but encountering no one as she made her way to her room 
and flung herself, face downward, on the bed. The possi¬ 
bility of there being some one he cared for, when Mrs. 
Lorrin first mentioned an errand he had asked her to 
perform for him, came back to Mary now with the 
knowledge that it had been indeed a premonition! 

She had accepted it then as a matter with which she 
had no right to concern herself, knowing that with his 
vindication their lives must necessarily lie far apart, for 
even if he might have cared for her she was irrevocably 
bound to another man. Now, however, that the woman 
he held dear must be the unconscious cause of his con¬ 
tinuing to bear this burden of shame and disgrace, Mary 
felt a hot tide of resentment rising within her. 

If this unknown were worthy of such love she would 
not permit this terrible, unjust thing—unjust to her as 
well as to him! Would his mother, would Mary herself, 
be right in permitting this sacrifice to be consummated? 
If they succeeded in obtaining the proof that would clear 
him, dared they in justice withhold that knowledge from 
the world? 

Mary rose as this thought came to her and paced the 
floor in an agony of indecision. No attempt to analyze 
her feelings, no idea of petty jealousy, entered her pure, 
conscientious mind. Was it fair to any one that he 
should remain under such a cloud for the rest of his 
life? Her whole spirit revolted against it and gradually 
the resolution formed that even against his will, his very 
knowledge, she must go on with the case! 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 


217 

She would keep her word and arrange to get him safely 
away, but she had made no other promise, and wherever 
he might be she would keep on working until she learned 
the truth! He had said that his mother would approve 
of his course, but Mary determined to take the proof of 
his innocence to her when she had learned it and leave it 
to her to decide. This resolution of George Lorrin’s 
was born of a sick, distorted brain and he must be saved 
in spite of himself! 

Fired with the strength of her determination, Mary 
managed to dress and appeared at dinner flushed and 
more animated than she had been for days. She saw 
the relief in her mother’s face, the lines of worry relax 
on her father’s brow; and when, after the meal was con¬ 
cluded and the former remarked tentatively that perhaps 
they might go to the bridge game at the Rathbuns’ after 
all, she saw them off with contrite tenderness. They too 
had suffered in the mystery she was compelled to main¬ 
tain, but when it was all over, how she would make it up 
to them! All her life she would devote to their happiness; 
that, at least, was left to her! 

“Praise the saints!” a voice muttered behind her as 
she turned from the door to return to the library. “ ’Tis 
well they’ve gone, Miss Mary, for you’ve another visitor 
and if you want me to get rid of him, just say the 
wor-rd!” 

“Another visitor, Susan?” Mary asked in surprise, 
her heart beating rapidly with apprehension. Who else 
should come to her by stealth? 

“Yes, and who but that young man you give the go-by 
to, that Mr. King!” Susan snorted with indignation. 
“The imperence of him! He’s waiting out under the 
pergola this very minute, afther coming to me as bould 


2 l 8 


LIBERATION 


as a lion, and he says he’ll not go till he sees you! I let 
him see plain he was not wanted around here but he says 
you’re the best judge of that! Will I call Nils and have 
him sent about his business?” 

“No, Susan.” Mary shook her head. “There is 
something I want to see Mr. King about, and I’m glad he 
came. You’re to say nothing of his visit to any one, 
of course. I can trust you?” 

“I wish you couldn’t!” Susan retorted fervently. 
“He’s two-faced for all his smiling ways, Miss Mary, and 
I was thinking we was well rid of him! You’ll be coming 
in soon?” 

Mary reassured the old nurse’s solicitude and went 
slowly out to the pergola. What could he want of her? 
Surely their conversation had been final enough that 
afternoon! As he himself said, they had come to an 
impasse; what more could be said between them ? 

At the flutter of her light gown in the fast deepening 
dusk, a dark figure rose from the seat under the pergola 
and she saw a tiny pin point of fire rise in an arc and 
fall into the dew-laden grass as he flung his cigarette 
away. The next instant his low voice reached her. 

“Mary! I had to come! I couldn’t bear to go back to 
town and leave matters as they were between us! You 
asked me to do something this afternoon and I wanted 
you to know that I will!” 

“You mean that you will find Richard Hill?” She had 
not offered her hand and his fell to his side as she passed 
him and seated herself on the bench. 

“Yes. There isn’t going to be any more pretense be¬ 
tween us, and I’m bound in all fairness to tell you again 
that I don’t believe Dick had anything to do with that 
forgery, nor even has a suspicion! After you left me 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 


219 


I went to the inn at Scarborough, and before I dined I 
telephoned his wife under that wretched pseudonym, of 
course; I had no choice. I assured her he hadn’t come 
to me and she seems pretty hopeless, poor woman! 
Seems to think he’s gone for good.” 

“And you still think that doesn’t look like guilty 
knowledge?” There was a touch of half-incredulous 
scorn in Mary’s question, but King replied emphatically: 

“I still think it looks as though he were afraid of being 
dragged into a mess, for her sake! Even though he did 
me that favor, of which I told you, I’ve got to admit that 
he hasn’t much nerve; a good fellow enough, but a mighty 
weak, poor-spirited specimen in a show down! We’ll 
find him, though, and if he should suspect anything we’ll 
get it out of him!” 

“How do you propose to do it, Wesley?” she queried 
pointedly. “There are always private detectives-” 

“And the authorities!” he interrupted her. “I advised 
his wife to report him without delay to the Bureau of 
Missing Persons. I can’t appear in the matter as his 
friend, of course, because of that wretched name, but I 
can get private detectives on the job right away and have 
them mail their reports to you if you don’t trust me to 
handle it! I wish you could, Mary! I wish you could 
forget that falsehood of mine about seeing old J. W.! 
If you knew how I cared for you, how I longed for our 
happiness together-” 

“Don’t, please!” She held up her hand protestingly. 
“If you are sincere at last, if you really mean to help me, 
to prove yourself in my eyes, don’t speak of the future 
again until we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. 
Mr. Lorrin has changed all at once; he wants the in¬ 
vestigation dropped!” 




220 


LIBERATION 


“He—wants—what!” King cried. 

“Hush, Wesley! We must be careful!” she warned. 
“He wants to go away and take his ultimate chances of 
escape without having the guilty person brought to jus¬ 
tice!” 

“Well, look here, Mary!” King burst out excitedly, 
but in a more guarded tone. “Doesn’t that look as if 
after all he committed that forgery?” 

“Never!” she exclaimed. “He wants to protect the per¬ 
son who did, for some reason of his own.” 

There was a pause while King nervously took out his 
cigarette case and then replaced it in his pocket. After 
a time he said in a changed tone: 

“That’s pretty white of him if it’s true, but I cannot 
imagine his motive! Anyway, we’ve got to respect it, 
of course, it’s his own affair and we have no right to 
interfere further. I’ll help him to get out of the country, 
as I offered before, and that will be the end of it.” 

“It will be only the beginning!” Mary announced 
firmly. “I’ll never rest till I’ve proved his innocence, 
even in spite of himself! Your principles seem to have 
changed, Wesley. What about the cause of common 
justice now?” 

“But my dear girl, the man has a right to choose for 
himself!” King expostulated. “If he wants the case 
dropped we mustn’t take it upon ourselves to drag it into 
the limelight!” 

“I shall leave that to his mother, but I mean to know 
the truth for myself!” There was a note of finality in 
her tones that King recognized, and he veered suddenly. 

“There’s no harm in that!” he conceded. “You’ve 
taken an interest in him from the beginning and we’ll 
find Hill, anyway, and hear what he’s got to say. You’re 


FOR ONE HELD DEAR 


221 


right about his mother, Mary; I confess I didn't think 
of her for the moment. I’d like to talk to him, like to 
find out, if I can, why he’s taken this stand and make 
arrangements to get him away; he’ll never know we’re 
going on with the investigation till we’ve got all the 
evidence in hand. Think it’s too late to rout him out? 
It isn’t nine yet!” 

“I don’t know that he wants to see you,” Mary de¬ 
murred. “It’s all settled, finished, as far as he’s con¬ 
cerned.” 

“But if I’m to help him escape?” King insisted. “You 
can’t manage it by yourself—you and Susan! We’ll 
put him aboard a train together—or a steamer if he 
prefers that, and I needn’t come here again and annoy 
you till all our plans are completed.” 

There was bitterness in his tone and Mary felt a 
twinge of compunction. 

“It is good of you to do this, Wesley! I don’t think 
I could arrange it all by myself.” She rose. “Come 
then, but mind he believes only that we are going to 
accede to his wish and drop all further efforts in his 
behalf.” 

They stole down to the studio and up on the porch, 
but no sound or movement from within greeted the echo 
of their cautious footsteps, and King knocked softly 
on the door. 

“Hello!” he whispered. “The door’s open! It swung 
inward when I touched it, and there isn’t a sign of a 
light!—No, let me go ahead!” 

Mary would have passed him but he barred her way 
and entered first himself. From the threshold she could 
hear him fumbling at the table. 

“Lamp’s not here!” he muttered, and as he groped his 


222 


LIBERATION 


way to the mantel she waited, her heart fluttering wildly 
with a nameless fear. Then a match flared up, touched 
the wick, and the lamp chimney tinkled as King replaced 
it with a shaking hand. The light flickered and steadied, 
showing the long, low room to be empty! 

“Quick! In there!” Mary pointed to a door at the 
side. “IBs a storeroom! Something may have hap¬ 
pened !” 

King sprang forward, holding the lamp aloft, and dis¬ 
appeared into the inner chamber and as instantly Mary 
had darted to the table where her quick eyes had dis¬ 
cerned a small square of white. Her fingers closed over 
the envelope and she thrust it into the bosom of her gown 
with no need to read its contents. George Lorrin had 
gone to take his forlorn chance! 


CHAPTER XX 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 



O one is there, and only a packing case of books 


has been rummaged in!” King reentered the 


studio and set the lamp on the table, gazing at 


Mary over its top, the footlight effect giving him weird, 
bluish shadows about his eyes and mouth. “What do you 
think has become of him, Mary?” 

“He’s tried to get away without giving us an oppor¬ 
tunity to help him any further!” There was utter desola¬ 
tion in her tone and she was oblivious to King’s stare. 

“You’re sure it’s that?” he asked, then added quickly: 
“My car’s just around the turn; perhaps he’s taken 
that?” 

“No, he wouldn’t.” Mary shook her head. “He 
doesn’t want any help from us!” 

“Then he’s a fool! He’ll be taken, sure!” King 
checked himself and then remarked after a pause: “We’re 
doing no good staying here, Mary, with this lamp to draw 
attention to us! I’d like to find the fellow and give him 
a lift—do you suppose he’s made for the station here, or 
at Scarborough or Harmon?” 

The suggestion roused Mary from the shock of their 
discovery and she cried hastily: 

“No! Put the lamp out and we’ll go, but leave the 
door open. He may come back.” She turned toward 
the porch. “I don’t believe Mr. Lorrin would risk a 
station near here on the main line, but do go and look for 


224 


LIBERATION 


him, Wesley! Try the back roads—anywhere! Til wait 
out in the garden as long as I can, and if I don't hear 
from you I'll slip out and telephone you in the morning. 
Find him! Save him from being caught!" 

She didn’t realize the agony of entreaty that rang in 
her low, quivering tones and King extinguished the lamp 
suddenly as she ceased speaking, then made his way 
toward her. 

“I’ll do my best, Mary!" He left the door ajar be¬ 
hind them and guided her down the porch steps with a 
carefully impersonal touch upon her arm. “He must 
have been beside himself to have gone off like this! There 
was a covered tray on the floor in the corner, so he must 
have had his supper, did you notice it ? The lamp chim¬ 
ney was cold, though, when I touched it. It’ll be sheer 
luck if I do find him now, but I’ll cruise around the roads 
till dawn, if necessary!" 

He talked on with a garrulity that betokened some in¬ 
ward excitement, which was all at once borne in on 
Mary’s consciousness. Quick-tempered and violent as he 
was, he seemed to be trying to mask some strong emo¬ 
tion that all but consumed him, and she wondered. He 
had never showed such an interest in George Lorrin 
before—any interest, in fact, save an antipathy that 
amounted to actual hatred, and what help he had given 
had been enforced by her command. 

Was he hiding something from her now? Had he seen 
something back there in the studio that had been hidden 
from her eyes—in the storeroom, perhaps ? Mary halted 
abruptly at the belt of trees fringing the grove. * 

“Go on alone, Wesley, we might be seen!" she whis¬ 
pered. “You know the way to the side gate and you 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 


225 

mustn’t lose a minute! When I hear your car start I’ll 
go to the pergola and wait!” 

“It’s a slim chance that you’ll hear from me to-night!” 
he responded reluctantly. “Even if I locate Lorrin he 
mayn’t be willing to return and I’ll have to take him along 
with me. Don’t wait too late, and be sure you ’phone 
me in the morning!” 

Her renewed distrust had crystallized and she asked 
breathlessly: 

“You do mean to find him if you can, don’t you? 
You’re not pretending now, not deceiving me?” 

King laughed shortly and when he spoke there was no 
tender reassurance for her in his tone, but rather a grim 
determination. 

“I’ll find him, Mary! He won’t be taken if I can 
Help it!—Look here, you’re not to make a single move in 
this matter, nor in trying to locate Hill, either! You’ll 
do more harm than good and only get all of us into 
trouble. I’ll attend to everything and if you don’t be¬ 
lieve me at last you’re not the little woman I thought 
you! I’ll find George Lorrin!” 

He turned, diving behind a patch of shrubbery, for the 
moon had risen, and Mary saw a moving shadow pass 
through the garden to the side gate. 

She stood quite still till faintly from down the road she 
heard the whirr and hum of a motor, then slipped back 
through the grove to the studio. It had never seemed 
as desolate and forsaken to her before, and the night 
breeze in the tall trees mingled eerily with the tinkling 
rush of the brook in the glen and the mournful hoot of 
some owl up the hillside beyond. 

Shivering in spite of herself, Mary crept in and clos- 


226 


LIBERATION 


ing the door carefully she felt her way to the mantel and 
relighted the lamp with a stray match her fingers en¬ 
countered there. Turning with her back to the fireplace, 
she stared about the studio more carefully than before, 
but George Lorrin had evidently set it in order, for 
no trace remained of its late occupancy save the covered 
tray in the corner. 

Mary advanced to it and lifted the white cloth; the 
food beneath it had been left untouched. Sighing, she 
took up the lamp and went hesitatingly to the storeroom 
door, half fearful of what she might find there. It was 
as Wesley King had said: the lid of one packing case 
was open, the books scattered about within, but all else 
was as it had been for long years. 

There was no sign of a struggle; George Lorrin had 
gone of his own accord! Where was he now? Skulk¬ 
ing about in the woods somewhere, tramping a lonely 
road, a fugitive forever from his kind? Why had he 
not waited at least for aid in order to get safely away? 
It did not seem like him to leave without a single word 
of farewell! 

But her note! The envelope which she had picked 
up from the table without time to glance at the super¬ 
scription, but knowing instinctively it was for her! How 
could she have forgotten it? 

Returning to the table, Mary placed the lamp on it and 
then drew the letter from the bosom of her gown. It 
was blank but she tore it open with trembling fingers and 
sank into a chair. 

The writing was the same as when he had signed as a 
witness at her marriage ceremony, almost the same as 
that which had appeared in the photograph of the forged 
check, and she read it with a fast-beating heart: 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 


227 


“Dear Lady: 

“I am going away because I must, before my 
presence brings further trouble upon you than you 
can know. Please remember what I begged of you, 
that all investigation be dropped. I will give myself 
up voluntarily if it is continued, for the truth shall 
never be known! Please also explain this to your 
friend who has offered to aid me and tell him that I 
have sworn this. If I am taken, neither you nor he 
have ever seen me. If I get away, you will never 
hear of me again; but if you think of me at all know 
that I shall always remember you with deepest grati¬ 
tude and honor as the noblest woman in all the 
world. May God bless and keep you, and bring you 
happiness.” 

It was unsigned and as Mary stared at it her eyes 
slowly dilated and her face blanched. Again she read it 
and yet again; then it fluttered to her feet and she started 
up, stifling a wild cry which rose to her lips. 

She was “the noblest woman in all the world!” He 
had gone to save her— her !—from further trouble “than 
she could know!” She was to tell her “friend” that 
George Lorrin had sworn the truth would never be 
known. He would give himself up first, go back to 
prison—to keep from suffering some one who was “very 
dear to him!” 

She was the woman for whom he had made this terrific 
sacrifice! She was the “noblest in the world,” the woman 
he loved! If knowledge of the identity of the real forger 
would cause her suffering, it could only be because the 
criminal was closely connected with her, the man whose 
name she bore—Wesley King! 


22 8 


LIBERATION 


She shrank back, cowering from the horror of the 
thought, but a thousand incidents came flooding back 
to her brain, confirming the truth; Wesley’s uncontrol- 
able start when he read the name of their convict witness 
over the latter’s shoulder in the parsonage, his brutally 
expressed efforts to get rid of him afterwards at the 
earliest opportunity, his rage when she announced her 
intention of giving the fugitive further help and obtain¬ 
ing his address! Surely there had been guilt then in his 
manner if only she might have realized it! 

Then their parting! His alternate abuse, insults, 
threats and pleading, with something underlying it all that 
was not love, not exactly fear, but craft! He had wanted 
her for his wife, he had tried again and again in their 
meetings since to persuade her to come to him, but, thank 
God, he did not love her! She saw that clearly now and 
in relief at this knowledge she did not yet question his 
motive in rushing her off her feet, carrying her away 
on that reckless elopement. It was enough for the 
moment that no spark of affection bound her to this 
despicable creature! 

There was that dinner under the swaying lanterns at 
Tommaso’s. She had been surprised and shocked at her 
own cynical indifference to his love-making, but his face 
as she had seen it in all its latent evil had risen before her 
again as on the night before and she had been unde¬ 
ceived. How careful he had been when she asked him 
about George Lorrin, how cleverly he had admitted 
knowing of him and his trial through their mutual asso¬ 
ciation with Mr. Wharton, and how he had tried to con¬ 
vince her of Lorrin’s guilt! Only when she made an 
issue of it had he promised to help prove the other man’s 
innocence, and what had he done to keep that promise! 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 


229 

How could she have been so blind as to trust him? 
Mary covered her face with her hands, feeling a cold 
chill clutch her, sweep her as with a gale. She had placed 
George Lorrin in his hands! Even now she had sent him 
forth to hunt down the one person on earth who could 
betray him! 

The worn latch of the old studio door had slipped and 
it swung inwards for an inch or two, but she was oblivious 
to it. King had not betrayed George Lorrin to the 
authorities because he was afraid of losing her; that 
could be the only explanation.—Yet might it not be also 
that he feared through her instrumentality that the case 
might be reopened and the truth discovered at last ? She 
could well understand his repeated offer to help get the 
fugitive out of the country; flight would admit the guilt 
he had always denied, and when King first came there 
to the studio he had tried with all his plausibility to make 
George Lorrin see how hopeless his case was. What had 
he said to Lorrin alone that night to make him begin to 
suspect the truth? 

As this thought flashed across her mind Mary dropped 
her hands and straightened. Then she started, quivering, 
her eyes fixed wide and dark upon the door, for it was 
opening slowly, deliberately, a hand clutching the latch 
and a shoulder silhouetted between moonlight and lamp’s 
glow! 

There was something so incredibly stealthy and 
affrighting about the silent, cautious advent of the in¬ 
truder that Mary opened her lips involuntarily to scream, 
but no sound issued from them and she could only wait, 
tense yet erect, wnile the door continued to move inch by 
inch till after endless ages a face appeared! 

Convulsed now with the fear that had been latent in it 


LIBERATION 


230 

at their first meeting, Mary nevertheless knew it and her 
own terror fell from her even as the recognition became 
mutual. 

“Come in, Mr. Hill!” she said with a little flutter in 
her breath. “Did your wife give you my message?” 

He nodded sullenly, then leaped in and whipped the 
door shut behind him, standing with his back to it to 
stare in abject fear about the studio and then into her 
face. 

“I knew it!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I 
knew when my wife told me about you that you were the 
girl who came to the office yesterday! I might have been 
wise then that it was all up!” 

“You told her after Mrs. Lorrin left last night that you 
were being framed, but you didn’t mean by poor George 
Lorrin or his friends!” Mary remarked. It seemed to 
her that miraculously her brain had cleared and was 
functioning without her volition as under the spell of 
another’s personality; that the words issuing from her 
own lips with the calmness of certainty were directed by 
something quite apart from her consciousness. “You 
meant that some one else would frame you if he could in 
order to save himself now that the truth was coming out. 
Why didn’t you speak first and save yourself from the 
\vhole brunt of that forgery? Why did you run away?” 

“Because I was afraid!” gasped the visitor. “I’ve 
always been afraid of him, he was too slick for me, and 
I’m afraid now! He isn’t here?” 

“No.” Mary’s lip curled. “Did you think I told your 
wife to send you into a trap?” 

He came slowly forward into the full aura of the 
lamp, a pitiable figure despite his jaunty clothing, his 
round face sagging and putty-colored, his eyes bloodshot 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 231 

and shifting desperately, his full lips twitching and 
slavering. 

“I didn’t know what to think, before God!” he ex¬ 
claimed. “Fm almost crazy! I came here because it was 
my last chance! You told my wife you knew I didn’t 
commit that forgery, but the main guy who framed 
George Lorrin first would try to get me now! You said 
you’d see it didn’t happen if I’d come to you, and that’s 
why I’m here!” 

“I said I’d see that you weren’t unjustly accused but I 
can’t help you unless you tell me the whole truth,” Mary 
responded. “Sit down here and try to compose yourself. 
We’re quite alone and you needn’t be afraid to tell me 
everything from the beginning. The man who com¬ 
mitted that forgery was Wesley King, wasn’t he?” 

She forced the utterance of the name and in spite of 
her conviction she found herself waiting in forlorn sus¬ 
pense for the answer. If she had been wrong, after all? 
If George Lorrin might possibly have been mistaken and 
the man to whose life she had linked hers were not a 
criminal- 

But if subconsciously that hope had existed it died 
quickly, for Hill nodded and a visible shudder shook 
him. 

“Yes! I swear I hadn’t anything to do with it, I 
swear I didn’t know what he wanted those notes and re¬ 
ceipts for! I didn’t even guess till it was all over—till 
Lorrin was pinched, I mean! I suffered hell waiting for 
the trial for fear some new evidence would crop up, and 
right until he was convicted and his appeal denied I didn’t 
dare breathe! King was cool all the way through, noth¬ 
ing feazed him!” 

Mary choked with contempt for the craven young 


LIBERATION 


232 

scoundrel before her, who had no thought for the inno¬ 
cent man condemned to a living death and undying dis¬ 
grace, but the very frankness of his confession showed 
that he was unconscious of its enormity and she held her: 
resentment carefully in leash. 

“Tell me about those notes and receipts.—But first, 
how long had you and Wesley King been friendly ? Did 
you ever open a bank account for him or with him?” 

Dick Hill stared. 

“Me? I never had a bank account in my life except a 
tin one and then I used to slide the coins out with a 
knife blade! King always seemed to me like a super¬ 
cilious kind of a duck till one day about eight or nine 
months before that Lorrin check came up. Lorrin was 
all right, used to come into the office with his reports and 
seemed like a good fellow enough; I never had any¬ 
thing against him and I wouldn’t have framed him, ever, 
—it was King! One day we met going down in the ele¬ 
vator at noon and King asked me out to lunch. He was 
a swell and I was tickled to death, and after that he began 
to take an interest in me—not around the office, you 
understand, but outside, taking me to burlesque shows 
and suppers and never letting me foot the bills. Great 
guy to talk to, too; knew a lot about reading character 
from handwriting and other stuff that I’d thought was 
all bunk before.” 

“ ‘Character from handwriting’ ?” Mary repeated 
sharply. 

“Sure. That’s the way the whole thing came about, 
Miss Greenough. I fell for that stuff hard and when he 
asked me to get specimens of handwriting of everybody 
connected with the office I did it, like a simp! He was 
a shark at it, I’ll say that for him; read Lamprey and old 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 


233 

Norcross and the rest like a book! Lorrin was the only- 
one he couldn’t seem to get and that’s why he wanted so 
many of his signatures on the reports.” 

He was talking rapidly, eagerly, but with a certain 
monotony as though he had committed his story to 
memory and Mary saw that he was lying, but she merely 
nodded and said: 

“Go on.” 

“Well, it was like this.” There was a trace of con¬ 
fusion in Hill’s tone now, as though something in her 
gravely judicial manner disconcerted him, and he twirled 
his hat between nervous fingers. “About seven months 
before Lorrin was pinched I got in a little trouble over a 
debt I owed, and King advanced the money to get me out 
of it. ’Course that cinched him with me and I thought 
he was the whitest guy I’d ever met! Then—then later 
came the show-down about the forged check.” 

He paused, swallowing hard, and Mary remembered a 
phase of her conversation with Mr. Wharton on the 
previous day. 

“Mr. Hill!” She sat forward in her chair and fixed 
his furtively moving eyes with her own steady, clear 
ones. “I told you I couldn’t help you unless you told me 
everything. Something else occurred in that office 
about six months before Mr. Lorrin’s arrest. What was 
it?” 

“ 'Something else’ ?” he echoed, his hands suddenly 
tightening on his hat-brim. “I don’t know!” 

“I think you can remember!” Mary urged. “You 
must have heard Mr. Wharton telling me about it yes¬ 
terday when you were watching me through the glass 
panel of his office. It was something about a check book 
he’d left open on his desk.” 


LIBERATION 


234 

Dick Hill’s lips had become stiffened and dry, and 
now he moistened them and nodded jerkily. 

“Oh, yes. He’d left a check book there when Lorrin 
was alone in the office. I heard Lorrin say something 
about it to old Norcross when he left and they both 
laughed, but I didn’t catch what it was. I don’t know 
anything more-” 

“Mr. Hill, you’re wasting my time and yours!” Mary 
interrupted him with sudden decision. “You do know 
that a check from that book, issued by an obscure bank 
in which Mr. Wharton kept a minor account, was the 
one used in that forgery later. You know it was missing 
that day, for it was you who drew Mr. Wharton’s atten¬ 
tion to the blank stub, and you did it because Wesley 
King instructed you to! After you heard Lorrin’s remark 
to Norcross you stole that check and gave it to King!” 

“I—I—it’s a lie!” Hill cried harshly as he rose. “I 
never—I didn’t come here for this!” 

“Then go!” Mary shrugged. “You knew all about 
that forgery from the beginning; that’s why you first 
procured those signatures from the office. Lorrin was 
chosen to be the victim and that incident of the neglected 
check book and Lorrin’s remark upon it played straight 
into your hands. You took those signatures and that 
check; is there anything to show that any one but you was 
concerned in the forgery?” 

“God, that’s what I was afraid of!” the miserable 
young man groaned. “That’s what King’s planning to 
put over on me! You’ve got me right, but that’s all I 
did have to do with it! Wesley King wrote the check in 
old J. W.’s hand, signed his name and then told me how 
he was going to cash it, so that there wouldn’t be any 



THE VOICE OF FEAR 


235 

question raised in the cashier’s mind. I’d never seen that 
sort of stuff pulled and I thought it was wonderful!” 

“How did he plan to cash the check ?” Mary asked. 

“Why, he never forged Lorrin’s name on the back of it 
as endorsement until he got right to the bank, to the 
cashier’s window. Then he pretended to have forgotten 
and wrote the name right there before the fellow’s eyes 
with his fountain pen! That’s why he practiced Lorrin’s 
name so much—to be able to copy it quick, offhand. Luck 
was with him, though, for that cashier died a month later; 
he was scared stiff till then, but he came to me and said: 
‘Dickie, my boy, we’re safe! Nothing on earth can point 
to us now!’ Right after that, though, he began to get 
arrogant, as if I wasn’t his kind and he’d only been 
using me! Little I cared!” 

“But—you never once thought of Mr. Lorrin’s side 
of the case!” Mary could not keep back the reproach 
and Hill winced. 

“Oh, I did, but not till the time of the trial drew near 
and then I was worried sick for fear I’d be called as a wit¬ 
ness for having shown J. W. where that check was miss¬ 
ing that day—I never could have faced Lorrin, him a 
prisoner, and me! I wasn’t called, though, and ever since 
he went up I’ve had spells thinking about him and wish¬ 
ing I hadn’t done it, even after I got married and began 
to live quiet and—and happy! I never thought of his 
escaping, though, or any one getting on to the truth!” 

He dropped into a chair once more, letting his hat fall, 
to bury his face in his hands with his elbows on his 
knees, and after a moment Mary queried: 

“How much did you get of the five thousand?” 

“Only five hundred. King promised me a thousand 


LIBERATION 


236 

but he reneged and there wasn’t anything I could do! 
When I read Tuesday morning that Lorrin had escaped 
I didn’t dare go near King, not until last night, after Mrs. 
Lorrin had been to my house. Then I went to him and 
he said the game was up and we’d both have to leave the 
country; that he’d take a train west to-night and sail 
for the Orient, and he’d get me a berth on a liner for 
South America sailing late this afternoon. He made me 
promise not to try to reach my wife to-day, but there was 
something in his manner I didn’t like—didn’t trust! 
Anyway, I couldn’t have gone without saying ‘good-by’ 
to her so I sneaked home, and she—she told me about 
you, and I saw that it was him going to frame me!” 

“Why was he known as ‘Coyle’?” Mary pursued. 

“It was only that once, when I introduced him to my 
wife; she said she’d told you about it. After he left 
J. W.’s office I didn’t see much of him; he was coming 
up in the world and somehow I never felt the same with 
him after that check business. When I told him I was 
going to be married he warned me never to mention him 
to my wife under his own name, so when I did talk of him 
I called him ‘Coyle’; it was the first name came into my 
head and I had to stick to it. That’s how I came to 
introduce him so. My wife made me give up running 
away to-day and got me to come up here to you, even 
though I couldn’t tell her everything. I have told you, 
though; how can you keep King from framing me? I 
took those signatures and the blank check and gave them 
to him, and even if it is only his word against mine he 
could prove a guy guilty of anything, he’s so slick! The 
little I’ve got wouldn’t help me against him with any 
jury!” 

“Then you have got something against him besides just 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 


237 

your word ?” Mary leaned forward across the table and 
something in her tone made Hill glance up quickly. Then 
he fumbled in his pocket. 

“I don’t believe much in those handwriting experts, 
not after Lorrin’s trial,” he explained. “They couldn’t 
even tell that it wasn’t his own endorsement on that check, 
let alone that it wasn’t him imitating old J. W.’s hand on 
the front of it, signature and all! I couldn’t expect them 
to tell whether it was me or King practicing Lorrin’s and 
J. W.’s names on these pieces of paper, but I kept them 
just the same!” 

He produced a worn, creased envelope from which he 
took a note and several pieces of a scratch pad, and passed 
them across to Mary. Dazedly she eyed them. The note 
addressed unmistakably in Wesley King’s hand was 
signed by him, addressed to “Dear Dick” and made a 
trivial engagement for that night, dated more than two 
years before. The fragments contained mere disconnected 
scrawls, sometimes a single letter, then two or three 
joined, then whole signatures: “J. W. Wharton” and 
“George Lorrin”! The final paper even held a sum of 
money written out in a straggling imitation of Whar¬ 
ton’s hand: “Five Thousand Dollars”! 

“Where did you get these?” Mary asked. “Have you 
shown them to any one else?” 

“No, Miss Greenough,” Hill replied to her last ques¬ 
tion first. “He used to write them in my room nights 
when he was practicing up to fix a check and pass it. The 
note to me is in his natural hand and the rest are half 
like his and half like old J. W.’s or Lorrin’s. He usually 
burned the papers he scribbled on, but I managed to get 
hold of those.” 

“Why?” Mary replaced them in the envelope. “If 


LIBERATION 


238 

you thought you were both safe from discovery, and 
didn’t believe experts could determine whether you or 
Wesley King had written these, why did you keep them?” 

Hill’s pasty face reddened and he moved uncomfortably 
in his chair. 

“1 thought they might be useful some time!” he blurted 
out finally. “I knew he was bound to go up in the world, 
a fellow as clever as him, and I expected he wouldn’t do 
as much for me as he promised. I wouldn’t go to Lorrin’s 
people with them because it mightn’t have done any good, 
but if I waited till King got to be a rich man—well, he 
ought to pay something to get away with a thing like 
that when a word from me might have got him into an 
ugly mess at least.” 

Mary felt a wave of repugnance rising within her at 
the incipient blackmailer’s naive confession, but she de¬ 
manded coldly: 

“Why didn’t you sell them to him last night?” 

“I forgot all about them, Mrs. Lorrin had given me 
such a scare about knowing the truth, and I thought then 
it was her or some people back of her that was going to 
frame me; I never guessed it was King till I got home 
this afternoon and my wife told me about your call,” he 
explained. “I thought of those old papers then and 
made up my mind I’d bring them to you if you were on 
the level. Do you think they could prove anything ?” 

“I think an expert could, with them as evidence and 
your story to back it up. Will you leave them with me?” 
Mary’s voice trembled slightly with suspense, but Dick 
Hill nodded casually and she thrust the envelope into 
her gown where George Lorrin’s own note to her had 
rested so short a time before. “Now, will you promise 
me that you will go straight home to your wife and stay 


THE VOICE OF FEAR 


239 

there till you have heard from me? You may have to re¬ 
peat your story in court, but you’ll be telling it first.” 

“I understand.” He picked up his hat. “State’s evi¬ 
dence; I’ve looked all that up, and I’ve been running 
straight ever since. That ought to count! If King don’t 
make his get-away after all, and tries to frame me!” 

He paused as a knock sounded upon the door and gazed 
at Mary in fear-stricken silence. She waited in outward 
calmness while the low, insistent knocking continued, but 
her heart was beating wildly. Could it be that George 
Lorrin had come back? Then all at once the voice of 
Wesley King came to her ears! 

“Mary! Are you there?” 


CHAPTER XXI 

CONFRONTED! 

D ICK HILL too recognized the voice of the man 
who had been his evil genius, for he uttered a 
horrified exclamation and after glancing about 
him like a trapped animal he turned on Mary fiercely. 

“That’s King now, and you’re yellow! He called you 
‘Mary’! Between you, you’ve got me!” 

“Go quickly!” She pointed toward the window. “I’ll 
keep my word! Go!” 

“Mary!” King called again from outside and Hill 
dashed for the window, tore the curtain aside and leaped 
with a crash through the sash just as the door was thrown 
open and King strode in. 

“Great Heavens, was that Lorrin?” The latter glanced 
toward the shattered window and then back to the girl 
who stood by the table with both hands clasped on her 
breast. The night air seemed to vibrate with the echoes 
of the shivered glass and through it there came the sound 
of feet scrambling madly over rocks and splashing in the 
waters of the stream in the glen below. “What’s the 
matter with you, Mary ? Why did Lorrin run like that ? 
Couldn’t he guess it was I?” 

Mary shook her head and slowly drew herself up to 
face him. 

“It wasn’t Lorrin,” she said. “That was Dick Hill!” 
“Hill?” He laughed harshly. “You’re crazy! What 
would Hill be doing here?” 

240 


CONFRONTED! 


241 

“He came because I sent for him. I left word with 
his wife for him to come to me. You see, Wesley,” 
there was a faint smile about her lips, “he didn’t sail 
for South America this afternoon, after all!” 

“What do you mean?” he demanded, but in his voice 
there was no longer the accustomed bluster. Instead it 
lowered with a grim, almost menacing quality and a hard 
glint had come into his dark eyes. 

“I mean that when we followed up the clew you your¬ 
self had given us, that there was something between you 
and Hill and he came to you as your former accomplice 
for protection, you tried to get rid of him, but you 
failed!” Unutterable loathing shuddered in her tone. 
“He got the signatures from the office for you, he stole 
the blank check and placed it in your hands, but it. was 
you who committed that double forgery, Wesley King! 
It was you, and not George Lorrin!” 

He sneered openly, and that latent look of evil which 
Mary had first glimpsed in the glare of the motor lamps 
on her wedding night was revealed in all its sinister 
malignity, latent no longer. 

“That’s rather a good story, Mary, and it would be 
mighty convenient for you if it were true, but it won’t 
hold water! Where’s your proof ?” 

“In safe hands!” she cried. '‘You were clever, as Mr. 
Wharton said, but not wise enough! Not wise enough to 
destroy all the pieces of paper you practiced writing his 
signature and George Lorrin’s upon in Dick Hill’s rooms 
more than two years ago!” 

His face was suddenly convulsed and she thought for a 
moment that he would spring upon her, but instead with 
a roar he whirled toward the window. Then as though 
realizing the futility of pursuit now he turned back to her. 


LIBERATION 


242 

gazing steadily into her eyes through narrowed lids. Un¬ 
accountably a cold touch of fear came to her! She had 
thought to see him break before her, confess, throw him¬ 
self upon her mercy, fly from her! Instead he was 
folding his arms, laughing in her face with something 
very like triumph in his voice! What could it mean ? 

“I shall not insult you by doubting your word, my 
wife!” His tone was filled with mock tenderness. “I 
can only hope, for your sake, that those pieces of paper 
are where you can obtain possession of them and destroy 
them as soon as possible.” 

“ Tor my sake’ ?” Mary repeated in spite of herself. 

“And that of your esteemed family—of which I am 
now a member!” He bowed ironically. “If whatever 
proof may exist against me is not suppressed, they will 
undoubtedly be proud to have a convicted forger as a 
son-in-law!” 

“Dear God!” Mary moaned softly beneath her breath 
as the truth became manifest to her at last. “You—you 
married me because of this?” 

“What else?” he demanded coolly. “You're not con¬ 
ceited enough to think that I fell in love with a simpering 
little fool like you, are you? Lorrin was under an inde¬ 
terminate sentence and he had served two years; he might 
be released at any time in the near future, for I'd kept in 
touch with his record and he was a model prisoner. I 
didn't underrate him, I knew the minute he was free he 
would try to prove his innocence, and—luck turns! I 
had a little money, a few influential friends, but I needed 
more solid backing with personal pride behind it! You 
see I am quite frank with you now, my dear; it’s actually 
a relief, for the game was boring me! Shall we go up to 


CONFRONTED! 


243 

the house now and announce the glad tidings of our 
marriage ?” 

“You fiend!” Mary sobbed dryly through clenched 
teeth. “You unspeakable beast!” 

“Exactly!” He bowed again. “After all, a slight 
explanation is due to you; as a matter of fact, you might 
as well know just where you stand! You have been 
brought up in cotton wool, Mary, ignorant of the world 
to a ridiculous degree for a girl of your age, but your 
people are right about one thing; a country club of the 
average sort is a promiscuous place! Your family live 
unostentatiously, but they are by far the wealthiest and 
most purse-proud in the neighborhood. Their holier- 
than-thou attitude won’t brook the disgrace of having 
your husband a jailbird, and they’ll move heaven and 
earth to hush this scandal up and keep me free, even if 
they have to put Lorrin back where he came from!” 

“You think so?” Mary asked quietly and her small 
head came up once more. “My family are too proud to 
stoop to dishonor! They obey the law and will see that it 
is obeyed; how little you know of the standards of real 
people!” 

“Standards are all very well, Mary, when they don’t 
pull the roof down over your own head!” King shrugged. 
“It’s one thing to be properly shocked at a neighbor’s 
downfall; it’s another to be cut by every one you know, 
pitied and ridiculed and triumphed over, all the more be¬ 
cause you’ve held your heads so high! Any way, I’ll 
take a chance on your family!” 

“Then your chance will fail!” Mary’s tones were 
still quiet but they were firm with conviction. “Far 
from being instrumental in sending an innocent man back 


LIBERATION 


244 

to prison, they will be the first to give you up to justice! 
They would do it if you were their own blood instead of 
a miserable interloper!” 

King’s dark eyes flashed and his lip curled back until 
the small, jaunty mustache lifted above his teeth. 

“There is another element that you have overlooked, 
my dear!” he remarked. “I regret that you force me 
to remind you of it but it seems to be inevitable. People 
of the highest minds as well as low are sometimes moved 
by the instinct of common gratitude. Perhaps your 
family will have cause to show their gratitude to me 
when they learn the whole truth!” 

“'Gratitude’?” Mary repeated wonderingly. Then 
her tone grew edged with scorn. “To youf For what?” 

“For taking you back as my wife!” 

Mary gazed at him, feeling that she must be taking 
leave of her senses. Surely she had not heard him aright! 
His wife! 

“I think one of us must be mad!” she declared. “You 
do not think that anything on earth would ever force me 
to acknowledge you as my husband in anything but 
name ?” 

“I think you’ll be glad to come to me, that your whole 
precious tribe will grovel on their knees to me to take you 
back when they know what I can make of you!” His 
voice had begun to shake as he lost control of himself at 
length and now he burst out in ungovernable fury. 
“Don’t you realize what I can do to you? I can raise 
a scandal about you that will blacken your name forever, 
drag that of your family in the dust! I was willing to let 
Lorrin go, even to help him out of the country for your 
sake, to give you an even break, and if your family meet 
me half way I dare say there won’t be much harm done, 


CONFRONTED! 


245 

but they and you will know that I’ve got you in the hollow 
of my hands!” 

“Scandal!” Mary half whispered. “Blacken my 
name ? Now I know that you are mad!” 

“Am I ?” His voice had risen almost to a shout. “You 
promised to elope with me on the very evening that a 
convict escaped from the prison down there. How does 
any one know that escape wasn’t arranged, from outside ? 
I come here for you and I find him hiding in your home 
with your connivance. You demand that I give him un¬ 
lawful protection, that I help him to get away, take him 
along with us! You make this a condition of our 
marriage and I am forced to agree! You insist that he 
be a witness to our ceremony and that he accompany us, 
indefinitely. Again, like an infatuated, blind fool I 
acquiesce, but when my patience is finally exhausted, after 
you have ridden with him, whispered to him for hours 
and I compel him to get out, you desert me at the first 
opportunity with no explanation. On our wedding 
night, Mary! You leave me scarcely an hour after I have 
kicked this convict out, you return to your home the 
next day-” 

“Stop! Stop!” She covered her ears as though to 
shut out his despicable calumny, her whole body swaying 
in the throes of almost physical nausea. Never in all 
her life had she believed a human creature could be so 
utterly low and vile and her very soul sickened with 
horror. Shuddering, she turned gropingly for the door 
to rush from his unclean presence, but her arms were 
gripped with crushing agony and she was swung violently 
about to face him. 

“When you go, I’ll go with you!” he announced. “Be¬ 
ginning to see now where you stand and what your 



LIBERATION 


246 

family's attitude will be? Beginning to realize they’ll 
welcome any husband who’ll stick to a girl after she’s run 
away from him on her wedding night with an es¬ 
caped-” 

The room swirled around her and Mary felt that in 
another moment she must faint, but she fought against it 
with all her remaining strength, and as her vision cleared 
a great calm possessed her, flowing through her veins like 
renewed, tranquillizing power. With it, too, there came 
the knowledge of what she must do, the course which lay 
clear before her, and she returned Wesley King’s gaze 
until his wavered and shifted. 

“Let go of my arms, please,” she spoke in quiet com¬ 
mand. “I think we understand each other at last. I am 
going up to the house now and if you wish you may come 
with me.” 

He released her and stepped back a pace or two, dis¬ 
concerted at this swift change in her. 

“Come to your senses at last, have you?” He spoke 
in a sullen, but modified tone. “You brought this on 
yourself, but it’s entirely up to you what steps you force 
me to take! Destroy what evidence you’ve got against 
me and your people need never know anything; they’ll 
accept me in time and we’ll forget to-night. Make me 
fight, and I’ve got weapons to crush you! Which shall 
it be?” 

“I told you we understood each other at last.” Mary 
shook her head. “I understand you now, but I’m afraid 
you’ve failed to understand me.” 

The very evenness of her speech seemed to arouse him 
once more, for a dull, mottled flush crept again into his 
cheeks and he eyed her warily, questioningly. 

“What do you mean?” he demanded bluntly. “What 



CONFRONTED! 


247 

have you got in your mind now? By the Lord, if you 
try to put anything over on me I’ll tell your family and 
the whole community that for the last five days you’ve 
harbored here-” 

“An innocent man?” Mary interrupted, and now her 
young voice rang out proudly. “The whole world shall 
know it soon enough! Come to the house with me if you 
will for I, myself, am going to call the authorities and 
hand you over to justice!” 

With a snarl like that of an enraged animal King drew 
back and dealt her a crashing blow in the face and Mary 
reeled, unconsciously covering her brow with her hand 
while the world rocked about her; but at that moment 
some one leaped in at the broken window, the steel-blue of 
a revolver gleamed in the lamplight and George Lorrin 
demanded: 

“What’s this? What’s going on here?” 



CHAPTER XXII 


GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 

N O one answered, although King growled inarticu¬ 
lately as he retreated before the muzzle of the 
weapon, trained so unexpectedly upon him. Mary 
still stood swaying by the table, one hand clutching a 
chair back for support and the other covering her temple 
from beneath which ugly red streaks were spreading, 
marring the delicate pallor of her skin. 

Still covering the infuriated man, George Lorrin 
backed until he could survey them both, and then said 
to Mary in a gentle yet firm tone: 

“Take down your hand, please.—Ah, he dared! He— 
struck you!” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Mary murmured faintly. “I—you 
see, I had just told him I knew the truth. He forged that 
check!” 

King made a lunge forward, but halted midway at the 
menace of the revolver and Lorrin ordered: 

“Stay where you are, you coward! I went away 
when I realized you were the man I was hunting for. I 
would have given myself up rather than have this woman 
know what you were, and suffer the pain and disgrace! 
To spare her I would have let you go free, but for that 
blow you struck I shall show you no mercy!—Mary, will 
you leave us? This is a matter of long years standing 
for us to settle alone.” 

The mottled red had faded from King’s face and a 
248 


GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 249 

ghastly whiteness ensued as his furtive glance traveled 
from Lorrin’s determined eyes to Mary’s dulled ones. 

“Before God, I didn’t mean to strike you, Mary!” he 
muttered thickly. “You’re my wife, still! No matter 
what he can say or do, you’re my wife! He’s armed—• 
I’m not! Would you leave me here to be murdered in 
cold blood ?” 

Mary seemed not to have heard him. Her eyes were 
slowly kindling as she turned to Lorrin. 

“I told him just now that I was going to summon the 
authorities and give him up to the justice that has de¬ 
layed too long. I’ll return to the house now and wait 
till you have finished with him, but before I go, I want 
you to know that Richard Hill has been here and made 
a complete confession of his complicity in this man’s 
guilt. He placed in my hands the proof of it!” 

King uttered a sound between a gasp and groan, and 
Lorrin’s swift gaze traveled from him to the girl. 

“Proof?” he repeated. 

“The bits of paper on which this man practiced your 
handwriting and Mr. Wharton’s. In the earlier stages 
his own characteristics show unmistakably. Hill was 
keeping them for blackmail later, but he’s turning State’s 
evidence. Here they are!” 

She produced the envelope from the bosom of her 
gown and held it out to Lorrin. King uttered a cry of 
baffled fury and made a last desperate effort to retrieve it, 
but once more the revolver stayed him and Lorrin ex¬ 
claimed : 

“Put up your hands! You know how, you learned 
from me once before! That’s it, keep them up!” With 
his free hand he took the envelope from Mary and put 
it in his pocket, then turned his eyes for an instant to hers. 


LIBERATION 


250 

“When I shall have settled with him for that mark he 
has dared to put upon your forehead, will it still be your 
wish to give him up?” 

“Mary!” King gulped, but again she ignored him. 

“It will be my determination to have him punished to 
the fullest extent of the law!” 

“Then will you go now, please ? It won’t be necessary 
for you to call in the police, for he will go to them volun¬ 
tarily. That I know. You will ask no questions? You 
will leave him to me ?” 

Mary turned without a glance at Wesley King, and 
Lorrin, still keeping him covered, backed toward the door 
and opened it for her. For an instant their eyes met and 
then with steady steps she descended from the porch and 
entered the grove. 

Once within its shelter, however, trembling seized her 
and her limbs almost gave way. What would happen 
between those two men in there? Lorrin had spoken as 
though his mind were thoroughly made up as to what he 
meant to do, and he said that King would give himself 
up to the police! Had there been some hidden meaning 
in his words? Wesley King would never surrender 
himself, he was too much of a coward to face the conse¬ 
quences of his crime! 

Her temple ached dully from the blow he had given her 
and with nerves strained to the breaking point she stag¬ 
gered onward. Ahead of her was the broad stretch of 
moonlit lawn, almost as bright as day; would she have 
strength to traverse it? What if her father and mother 
had returned, were looking for her? She had no con¬ 
ception of how much time had passed, but they must not 
find her near the studio; that final interview must not be 
interrupted now although—thank God!—Lorrin was a 


GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 251 

fugitive no longer! He could walk the earth at last a 
free man! 

Reaching the lawn, she walked waveringly across it to 
the pergola and found herself suddenly seized in Susan’s 
angular arms. 

“My lamb!” the old woman crooned. “It’s kilt en¬ 
tirely I thought you were! What was it going on in the 
studio awhile back, with the crash and bang you could 
hear to heaven? I was fearing maybe the prison 
guar-rds-” 

“No, Susan!” Mary dropped her head on the nurse’s 
shoulder and the first tears which she had shed welled 
from her eyes. “The prison guards will never come for 
Mr. Lorrin! He’s been proved innocent at last!” 

“Glory be!” Susan exclaimed. “ ’Tis the happy woman 
his mother’ll be the day! The fine lad he is, even if he is 
a gentleman!—But I’m after forgetting his supper tray! 

I’ll be going to get it now-” Releasing her charge 

she prepared to rush away. 

“No!” Mary clung to her. “No, Susan! There’s 
some one with Mr. Lorrin now; they mustn’t be dis¬ 
turbed !” 

“ ‘Disturbed,’ is it?” Susan stroked her hair. “With 
the noise they’ve been makin’ fit to wake the dead? ’Tis 
a mercy your father and mother haven’t come home yet 
and Nils wouldn’t wake if the house was afire, for I had 
my two hands full with the cook and housemaid when 
that crash came! What was it, alanna?” 

“The window’s broken, sash and all!” Mary broke 
down utterly and sobbed. “Don’t ask me, Susan! Take 
me to my room! I’m the happiest girl alive—and the 
most wretched!” 

“There! There!” the old woman murmured. “Come, 




252 LIBERATION 

then, and I'll put you to bed as if you were a little girl 
again!” 

But when they reached her room Mary dismissed the 
faithful Susan and seated herself by the window with 
the light extinguished. She could see the stretch of lawn 
bright and serene under the moon with the dense mass 
of the grove beyond and back of it and on the other side 
of the glen, the sharp incline of the hill dotted with 
clumps of shrubbery and a few trees. 

No sound had come from the studio hidden there, no 
faintest streak of light had shown out. What could they 
be doing, the man so bitterly wronged and his enemy? 
King was treacherous and a coward at heart, but he was 
cornered, desperate; he would stop at no means of escape 
now that he knew the certain destiny that awaited him! 
Would both, or only one, issue from that unseen door? 

Time passed slowly, so slowly that if it had not been 
for the moon’s steady glow Mary must have believed the 
night well over. She heard the car enter the gate, pause 
at the veranda and then round the driveway to the garage, 
then the low voices and soft footsteps of her father and 
mother as they ascended to their rooms, but afterward 
utter silence fell again. 

What would they say, these two who had brought her 
into the world, when they knew she had stolen out of the 
house like a thief to discard their name for that of the 
most despicable of criminals, a man who had not only 
robbed his employer, but cast the blame on an innocent 
man and made him suffer the tortures of imprisonment 
and disgrace? They would approve the course she had 
taken since; with her father’s stern sense of justice, her 
mother’s tender pity for all who were persecuted and vic¬ 
timized, they would uphold her in her championship of 


GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 253 

George Lorrin, even though through her it brought 
shame and sorrow to their own door, but what of that 
mad elopement? 

Through the horror of the trial and conviction which 
must come and the dragging years when the man whose 
name she had taken would be a neighbor, perhaps, be¬ 
hind those high walls at the foot of the hill, they would 
not forsake her. They would protect her always from 
him but—she was his wife! As long as they both lived 
she would be bound to him; and she and the man who 
loved her, the man whom she loved, must walk forever 
apart! 

Yet he was free! He would be exonerated before all 
the world with everything regained but those two lost 
years! It would be happiness at least to know that, to 
feel it through the horror of the immediate future and 
the gray, empty years which must stretch beyond! It 
would be worth all the suffering and loneliness, when she 
must remain shackled by that ceremony so devoid of true 
meaning, to realize that he was liberated! 

Was that a faint glimmer of light at last, through the 
trees of the grove? Mary strained her eyes but she could 
not be sure, for the moonlight was dimmed by a cloud, 
casting a haze that made everything shimmering and in¬ 
distinct. Then it emerged more silvery bright than be¬ 
fore, but the glimmer was gone and the grove showed as 
densely black as a curtain. 

Her heart slowed with disappointment and her weary 
head drooped. The long-drawn-out suspense was taking 
the last of her strength and she could not be sure that 
had really been a light from the studio or only a fancy 
born of her overwrought imagination. Would the end 
never come? 


LIBERATION 


254 

Then all at once she lifted her head sharply and her 
breath came fast, for it seemed to her that something was 
moving on the hill beyond the glen! It was in compara¬ 
tive shadow still and leaping forward in a strange, gro¬ 
tesque fashion like some animal in the last* extremity of 
terror! It dodged from one clump of shrubbery to an¬ 
other, so quickly that Mary could not make out its out¬ 
line, but at length it faced a stark open space on the steep 
hillside where the moon shone down almost as brilliantly 
as day, and flung itself up and onward. 

It was a man, but a queer, lightish, phantom-like ob¬ 
ject as he ran and scrambled and fell and rose again to 
rush blindly on! There was something wrong, some¬ 
thing almost unnatural! Then all at once, as he paused 
upright on the crest of the rise for an instant before 
plunging into the shade of the trees beyond, Mary saw 
him clearly and drooped insensible on the ledge of her 
window. 


George Lorrin pushed the door shut after Mary’s de¬ 
parture and then advanced again to where King stood 
with his hands still upraised and his dark eyes flashing 
with mingled hatred and fear. 

“Now then, King, I’ve got you! I’ve waited a long 
time for the man I wanted, and though I didn’t know 
who he was I was as sure I’d find him as I am now that 
the moment has come! I’ve had every day and night of 
the past two years to plan what I’d do with him when I 
got him, but I almost let you go wjben I found you were 
my man. You’ve saved my revenge for me, though; 
that blow you struck pronounced your own sentence— 
the sentence I’ve had waiting for you!” 


GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 255 

“Cut out the preliminaries!” King sneered. “I sup¬ 
pose you’ve rehearsed that speech too, till you’re glad to 
get it off your chest! You’ve got it in for me, what are 
you going to do ?” 

“One of two things,” Lorrin responded steadily. “Kill 
you where you stand or open that door and let you go—- 
but in my fashion. Which course I take depends on, 
you.” 

“Let me go?” Fear and hatred had given place to 
blank amazement in his eyes. Then they narrowed 
swiftly: “What’s the bargain? You’ve got a proposition, 
I suppose, a price for my freedom!” 

“Naturally. I’ll give you more of a fighting chance 
than you gave me, King.” Still covering him Lorrin 
backed to the mantel and fumbled behind him till he had 
found a bottle of ink and a pen. Then he advanced to the 
table again and took from its drawer a sheet of paper. 
“You’ll sit down here and write as I dictate, signing your 
own name to it for a change. Writing ought to come 
easy to you!” 

“A confession?” King cried. “I’ll see you damned 
first!” 

“Afraid you won’t have that pleasure,” Lorrin replied 
coolly. “I haven’t any timepiece but I judge it to be 
nearly eleven o’clock, nearly an hour since I heard a clock 
in the village down there strike ten. I’ll give you till it 
strikes again to make up your mind; with the second 
stroke I fire.” 

King started and moisture gleamed suddenly on his 
forehead in the lamplight. Then he laughed with his old 
attempt at bluster. 

“Think I’ll fall for that old bluff? You’ve had enough 
of Sing Sing not to relish the death house, I imagine!” 


LIBERATION 


256 

Lorrin’s pallor intensified and his eyes flashed at the 
taunt, but his voice was still composed. 

“It would be worth going there for such carrion as 
you, but you'll break! I almost hope you don’t. This 
isn’t quite the old bluff, King. You see, there’s a novelty 
in it, for neither of us knows whether that clock will 
strike in one minute or twenty, and your own watch 
would be no good to you even if I let you reach it, which 
I won’t! That clock is notoriously out of order, always 
too fast or too slow. There’s the proposition; think it 
over while you have the time—it’s rather worth your 
while.” 

He dropped negligently into a chair, but his revolver 
never wavered and King stood before him still with up¬ 
lifted hands, alternately cursing and listening, with 
strained attention. Once his knees bent slightly, almost 
imperceptibly, but he straightened them, and once his 
hands drooped, but a peremptory movement of the 
weapon sent them up stiffly once more. His breathing 
became more audible and shorter as the minutes passed 
and the sweat which had gathered on his forehead rolled 
like foul tears down his face, but his glaring eyes showed 
no signs of yielding. 

Lorrin watched him imperturbably, a faint smile curv¬ 
ing his lips; a tiny moonbeam strayed in at the window 
like a dart of steel to lose itself in the redder circle cast 
by the lamp, and the night wind rustled the trees as 
though whispering an invitation to freedom. 

King’s hands were shaking now, his mouth beneath 
the small mustache quivering and his breath came in 
great gasps, when all at once a dull distant “clang!” smote 
upon the air. 

With a cry he leaped to the table, his hand outstretched 


GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 257 

to grasp the lamp, but Lorrin seized it first and held it 
high aloft. 

“Don’t shoot! Don’t!” King grovelled over the table, 
clawing its surface. “I—I was only trying to find—the 
pen!” 

“You’ll have light enough from over here.” Lorrin 
laughed dryly as he backed once more to the mantel and 
placed the lamp there. “Now write what I tell you, and 
no tricks!” 

Crouched low in his chair, King picked up the pen 
and it jarred against the side of the ink bottle as he dipped 
it in. 

“ ‘June twenty-fourth, Nineteen Twenty-three,’ ” Lor¬ 
rin dictated. “ ‘I, Wesley King, do hereby confess that 
I forged J. W. Wharton’s name to a check dated Sep¬ 
tember eighth, Nineteen Twenty, numbered Seven Sixty- 
six, and written by me in imitation of his hand, to pay 
to the order of George Lorrin or bearer five thousand 
dollars. On the back of this check I forged George Lor- 
rin’s signature, endorsing it. This is the check for which 
George Lorrin was tried, falsely convicted and has served 
two years in the State’s prison at Sing Sing.’—Now sign 
it!” he commanded. 

Shakily King affixed his signature and then flung down 
the pen. 

“There, damn you!” he growled. “I suppose you know 
what good a confession is when it’s signed under com¬ 
pulsion, at the point of a gun!” The hope of immediate 
release was raising his spirits. 

“It will serve in this case with Hill’s testimony to back 
it up!” Lorrin returned, as he folded and creased it with 
one hand then thrust it into his pocket. “As a matter of 
fact it was your own fear and not this revolver that made 


LIBERATION 


258 

you write it; that was a train bell you heard, on the tracks 
down by the river. You didn’t wait for the second 
stroke; I suspect that the village clock is more thoroughly 
out of order than I had believed.” 

“A trick, eh?” King had risen and now much of his 
old bravado returned. “Am I free to go now or have you 
something else up your sleeve?” 

“I told you that if you wrote and signed that confes¬ 
sion I would open the door and let you go —but in my 
fashion ” He emphasized the last words slowly and al¬ 
though his tones were still self-contained King shrank 
back a step or two. 

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded. 

“Just as on the last time I held you up, I’ll have to ask 
you to strip, King!” A note of long-deferred triumph 
sang in his tones. “I won’t leave you as I did then, but I 
have a fancy for seeing you depart in other garments!” 

“Other-” King stared. “You’ve gone mad! 

What do you want these clothes for?” 

“I don’t. You suggested on that former occasion, you 
remember, that I wanted to change clothes with you, but 
I told you that I had another use for mine. The time 
has come to put them to that use, King, the purpose I 
vowed when first I put them on myself!” 

“Clothes? Good God, you don’t mean the prison uni¬ 
form!” King shrieked, as the import of the other’s words 
beat in upon his brain. Lorrin paid no heed, but stepping 
backward to the couch he knelt, still facing his enemy, 
and dragged out the waterproof bundle. 

“Come here!” he ordered. “Get down and unfasten 
that wire! You recognize the lap-cover from the dash of 
your own car, don’t you?” 

“Lorrin! You wouldn’t do this!” King quavered, his 



GEORGE LORRIN KEEPS A VOW 259 

voice breaking in a falsetto of terror. “You wouldn’t 
put those clothes on me and drive me out to be hunted 
like a mad dog! This—this is just a trick, like the 
clock!” 

“Is it?” Lorrin pointed to the bundle at his feet. 
“Come over and open this or I’ll drill you with a bullet! 
I want to, you know; don’t try me too far!” 

The words were flippant but his face was set inex¬ 
orably, and King shuffled across the floor to kneel before 
him and fumble with the wire that bound the bundle with 
hands which shook so that he could scarcely perform 
his task. When the waterproof covering fell open at 
last he shrank back on his heels, bowing his head before 
the man he had wronged. 

“For God’s sake, Lorrin, have mercy on me! They’re 
still looking for you—I’ll be shot down on sight!” 

“Did you have mercy on me?” Lorrin asked. “Even 
when I met you in the road last Monday night, would you 
have given me a helping hand ? I’ve waited a long while 
to put these on the man they fitted and I’ve kept them 
with me night and day since my escape till I found that 
man and kept my vow! Had I known the truth last Mon¬ 
day I might have changed with you then and there, but 
it’s not too late now. Take them, they’re yours!” 

He jerked the groveling wretch to his feet, snatched 
the watch from his pocket and spread the bundle on the 
couch. 

“Lorrin, I’ll do anything I can!” King wailed. “I’ve 
made nearly a hundred thousand—you can take it all! 
You said you’d give me a fighting chance, more than I 
gave you-” 

“I’ll give you five minutes by your own watch to strip 
and put on these clothes!” Lorrin interrupted. “It’s ten 



26 o 


LIBERATION 


minutes past eleven; if you’re not dressed by a quarter 
past and out that door, you’ll go out feet first. There’s 
freedom there, if you can make it—you’re starting with a 
better chance than I when I scaled the prison wall, for 
no bell will toll to warn the countryside that you’re at 
large!—Half a minute has gone, King!” 

Sobbing, muttering incoherent prayers for mercy, King 
disrobed and picked up the prison clothes, but at their first 
touch he dropped them and sank once more at Lorrin’s 
feet. 

“I can’t!” he bleated. “You’ll have to kill me here! 
I can’t make myself a target for—for death at the hands 
of the first person I meet! I should go mad!” 

“Three minutes!” Lorrin announced implacably. 
“You’ve only two more!” 

Broken, blubbering, beside himself with terror, King 
hauled on the detested garments and then sank into a chair 
with his head buried in his arms on the table, but Lorrin 
shook him by the shoulder. 

“Here’s two hundred dollars that I borrowed from you 
the first time we met!” He held out a roll of bills. 
“Take them and go!” 

Once more he jerked him to his feet and pointed to the 
door, and King staggered toward it as one in a dream. 
On the threshold he paused and glanced back appealingly, 
but Lorrin strode forward, tore open the door and hurled 
him forth into the night. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


DARK DAWN 

W HEN the door closed behind him Wesley lay 
for a moment where he had fallen on the soft, 
grassy loam of the little used path, sick with 
shock and the stress of his emotions, but the moonlight 
flooding his face made him start up in fear to dash reck¬ 
lessly ahead, anywhere out of that radiance which spelt 
menace to him. 

He found himself running down a steep bank, the 
loose stones rattling beneath his sliding, stumbling feet, 
but he could not stop until he plunged headlong into a 
shallow but swift-flowing stream. Struggling up from 
the icy water that drenched him, he waded across and 
staggered up the bank on the farther side, clutching at 
bushes and saplings to aid him in his ascent. A panic 
had seized him, a wild desire to get as far away as pos¬ 
sible from the studio and the man who had brought him 
to such a plight; and with the feeling that pursuers were 
already at his heels he dragged himself on till he came 
to the gentler rise of the hill, dotted with clumps of shrub¬ 
bery and young trees. From the shelter of one of these 
to another he leaped in a strange, grotesque fashion, like 
some animal in the last extremity of terror, but all at 
once he found himself confronted by a bare, shale-strewn 
acclivity so steep that it appeared like a wall before him, 
with that devilish moonlight beating down as bright as 
day upon it! 


261 


262 


LIBERATION 


The panic was still upon him, however, and he flung 
himself at the obstacle, running, scrambling, falling, to 
rise again and rush blindly on. 

When he reached the top, King paused for an instant 
to take breath—a queer, lightish, phantom-like figure in 
the unmistakable garb of the convict. He saw a dense 
thicket of trees in front of him, on the crest of the hill, 
but what was that distorted, elongated shadow on the 
ground at his feet, with the oddly flapping trouser-legs 
and sleeves, and the coat too tightly wound about a well- 
filled-out body ? 

Then he realized it was his own shadow—his shadow 
in prison clothes! With a smothered cry he dashed for¬ 
ward into the deep shade of the trees, groping his way 
among them till he came to a little hillock where the ac¬ 
cursed light could not penetrate, and soft moss provided 
a natural bed. 

Here King flung himself down to ease his bursting 
lungs and the panic gradually subsided. No one was pur¬ 
suing him yet, no one would until he showed himself. 
That scoundrel, Lorrin, had spoken truly; no bell would 
warn the countryside to run him down! He must take a 
leaf from Lorrin’s book, get a change of clothing as soon 
as possible, no matter by what means, and beat it out of 
the vicinity. 

He'd failed, of course, lost out all ’round, but the 
world was wide and he could start again. Hill could tell 
his story, Lorrin produce the proof and the whole lot of 
them go to hell as far as he was concerned! Freedom 
was sweet—he had never known how sweet before he felt 
these odious garments clinging to him like a sodden 
shroud! 

Was that something moving among the trees? He 


DARK DAWN 263 

started up on one elbow, his blood running cold, and 
stared with all his might into the darkness, but it was im¬ 
penetrable and only the whisper of a breeze among the 
branches came to his ears from overhead or the faint 
rasp of a falling leaf. 

Perhaps it would be better to get into open ground 
again, where he could at least see some sign of a human 
habitation. These woods were beginning to get on his 
nerves and it must be getting close on to midnight. He 
wouldn’t have long to wait till dawn and before the sun 
rose he must break into some farmhouse and steal a 
change of clothing; after that it would be easy sailing 
with two hundred dollars in his pocket. Half these farm¬ 
ers slept with their doors and windows unfastened, thank 
Heaven! 

What was that sound, like the pattering of feet? It 
was coming nearer, incredibly light and swift! Was 
some confounded dog scenting him out to run him down 
and then start baying ? Then he realized that the sound 
came from overhead and as he glanced up he saw two 
bright, beady eyes glaring down at him for an instant, 
to disappear with the swish of a brushy tail and the 
scrabbling patter once more. 

Only a squirrel or chipmunk, yet it showed what a 
state he was in! King rose to his feet, astonished to find 
how cramped and stiff he had become. He must have 
rested there longer than he thought in those wet, horrible 
clothes, and then too he hadn’t been keeping himself in 
condition lately, not for such rough country going as that 
glen and the hill. He’d get out of these woods and near 
a road anyway—perhaps he could find his way back to 
his car! There was a light ulster in it that would effec¬ 
tually cover him and he might even drive a certain dis- 


LIBERATION 


264 

tance before he judged Lorrin or that sanctimonious little 
fool he'd married could get word to headquarters in New 
York and have a warrant issued for him! 

The thought made him forget his aches and pains, and 
he started off with renewed strength; but getting out of 
the stretch of woodland was not as easy as getting into it, 
and he wandered about in circles for what seemed like 
hours before he found himself on a road. 

It was narrow and winding and deeply rutted, like the 
one upon which he had encountered Lorrin; but it wasn’t 
the same, for neat rail fences and stone walls came down 
to it abruptly on either side, with no place for him to 
walk save out in the center, and the moon was staring 
down upon him as brightly as before. 

He hadn’t the least idea which way led nearer his car, 
but, choosing what he thought might be the general direc¬ 
tion, he started off along the inner side of the nearest 
fence, laboriously climbing the intersecting ones which 
divided the fields and taking advantage of every stray 
shadow. Why did that haunting fear pursue him still? 
Was there some hypnotic quality about the clothes upon 
his back, that he should begin actually to feel like an es¬ 
caped convict himself? That grim, old pile of buildings 
with the rows of glittering windows had never meant 
anything to him save a vague feeling of repulsion when 
he had driven past it occasionally on his way between vil¬ 
lage and country club. He was no different now than he 
had been then, except in appearance! To-morrow, per¬ 
haps—to-morrow he would be “wanted” as a self-con¬ 
fessed forger, but to-night he was still Wesley King, 
clubman and general good fellow. Why did the prison 
loom now as a foreboding factor in his immediate life? 
He was still free! 


DARK DAWN 


265 

A low, stone wall reared itself before him and he did 
not look beyond as he wearily mounted it. He had 
climbed so many and still no crossroad appeared! He 
dropped down on the other side and a heavy stone, dis¬ 
lodged from the top, crashed down, striking him behind 
the knees and toppling him over backward. His head hit 
the wall with an agonizing thud that almost stunned him, 
but upon his dulled, singing ears there came the rush of 
padded feet and an ominous growl. 

He struggled up and fled reeling across an open space 
toward a dim, white object which he took to be a gate, 
but on nearer approach he saw that it was a well with 
the low, gray bulk of a dwelling just beyond. The dog 
was almost upon him now, its deep-throated growls 
changed to furious barking, and a window in the house 
flew up with a slam! 

Desperately King swerved and dashed around the rear 
of the house toward a huddled group of sheds and be¬ 
yond them to a meadow, skirted by a boundary of trees. 
Toward these he floundered, panting and with straining 
muscles, but he gained them in safety, for the dog had 
lost him among the group of outbuildings. He ran on, 
however, until he came to a higher fence with a barred 
gate, and passed through it to fall exhausted into a briar 
patch which effectually concealed him. 

Bright spots were dancing before his eyes and his heart 
pounded as though it would burst through his ribs, but 
the numbness at the back of his head had changed to a 
dull, throbbing ache, and putting his hand to it, he felt 
something warm and sticky and clingingly damp. 
Thrusting it out into the moonlight he saw that his 
fingers were stained with red, and instinctively he felt for, 
his pocket to get out his handkerchief . . . 


266 


LIBERATION 


Damn these clothes! He had forgotten that they 
branded him a criminal! The dog’s barking, the window 
that had flown up in response to it in that house back 
there—they might be looking for the intruder now, and 
he was far too close to it! 

The thorns tore at him as he struggled to his feet, but 
with a lunge he was free from them and plodding along 
between straight rows of young trees, mechanically, with¬ 
out conscious direction. He must have stumbled into an 
orchard; if he kept straight on would he come to another 
road? 

His head ached too abominably for him to think, and in 
self-disgust he tried to rouse himself from his lethargy. 
To scramble over a fence, and fall, and be chased by a 
dog—why, it was almost comic! What if he had cut his 
head a bit and his heart was hammering away so queerly ? 
Was that any reason why he shouldn’t collect himself and 
get out of this predicament? He’d been in tighter places 
before, but always clever enough to get out of them!— 
“Clever, too clever, but not wise enough!” Who was it 
had said that about him ? 

The row of trees ended in a wire fence, beyond which 
rushes and low hummocks betokened a marsh, but he 
pushed the wires aside and squeezed through. As he 
stooped a sharp pain darted across his head and the whir¬ 
ring in his ears gave place to a strident hum, but he 
straightened on the other side of the barrier and started 
across the marsh. He had lost all hope now of locating 
his car, and if every farmhouse kept a savage watchdog 
to sound the alarm, of what use would unbarred doors 
and windows be to him? He would have no chance to 
waylay a lonely traveler, as Lorrin had done, and none 
would be fool enough to let himself be held up so easily. 


DARK DAWN 267 

If he’d only ridden the scoundrel down no one would have 
been the wiser! 

He was stepping unsteadily from hummock to hum¬ 
mock now, jumping the wider spaces, and when he missed, 
as happened with increasing frequency, he slipped down 
almost to his knees in the oozing mud. Why had he 
floundered into this morass ? Every jump jarred his head 
and sent knife-thrusts of pain through it, and it seemed 
to him that his whole body was on fire! Would he never 
reach firm ground again? 

The moon was paling at last, it was growing darker— 
the darkness before the dawn! How many miles had he 
come ? How far was he from that rustic hut in the glen 
—or was it from the prison ? He couldn’t be sure now, 
but he knew that he must go on—keep going! 

He missed his footing again and this time the quaking, 
slimy bog seemed to fairly suck him down, but he dragged 
himself out of it and up on a tuft of dry grasses and 
hunched there, his hands clasped about his knees. His 
breath was coming in sobbing gasps and the humming 
in his ears was droning, boring into his head, but he 
found himself striving to listen, waiting with bated 
breath between each heaving inhalation for some sound 
that must come to him. Only the croaking of frogs and 
rustle of coarse, tall grasses in the breeze reached him, 
however, and at length with an effort he dragged himself 
up and scrambled to the next hummock and the next. . . . 

He didn’t know when at length he reached solid ground, 
but he found himself stretched beneath a tree. The pain 
in his head had become a stabbing agony, he burned as 
with fever, and yet every nerve in his body seemed taut 
with the effort to listen.—The clang of a bell! That was 
what he had waited for, of course, but why didn’t it 


268 


LIBERATION 


come? The brazen resonance of the prison bell, that 
could be heard for mile upon mile! 

A few nights ago it had rung in his ears for that other 
man whose clothes he wore, whose clothes he should al¬ 
ways have worn! Why didn’t it ring now? He felt 
that he wouldn’t care very much if it did; nothing mat¬ 
tered ! He was tired—so tired!—and Gad, how thirsty! 
The moon had quite gone now and the stars as well, for 
only a vast, black expanse stretched above him. When 
would the dawn come? 

He muttered and rolled over on his side with an arm 
under his battered head. It would be time enough with 
daylight to push on. He’d find some one and tell them 
he’d been stripped and robbed by the real convict who’d 
escaped the other day, get them to telephone his club to 
identify him, borrow some clothes and be off before word 
came that he was wanted! How simple it was! Why 
hadn’t he thought of that before? If only he had a drink 
of water, and didn’t feel so cold and shivery all of a 
sudden! If only his head would stop aching, ach¬ 
ing. . . . 

Wesley King awoke with a start and sat bolt upright, 
gazing about him with dazed, bloodshot eyes until a 
partial realization came to him, a memory of the events 
of the past night and knowledge of the dangers before 
him. Far more poignant even than these were the crav¬ 
ing of thirst, the ache of his overtaxed muscles and the 
throbbing pain, like dull hammers beating into his brain. 
What was that idea, that plan which had come to him 
just before he fell asleep? It had been absurdly simple 
and safe, he knew that; something about having himself 
identified over the telephone and borrowing some 
clothes- 



DARK DAWN 


269 

Oh, yes! He had encountered the real convict and 
been robbed! The whole scheme came back to his mind 
and he rose, steadying himself against the tree which had 
sheltered him. Dawn had come, but it was a dark one, 
with a leaden sky and promise of rain in the heavy, moist 
air. He was in a meadow which rose in a gentle incline 
from the bog, and just back of him the row of trees ran 
along the side of a low wall to a grove, above and beyond 
which a thin spiral of smoke rose lazily in the storm- 
laden atmosphere. 

Smoke betokened a house and that would mean tem¬ 
porary shelter and safety after he had made his plausible 
explanation; a chance to rid himself of this loathsome 
uniform, and a drink of water! 

Slowly he crept along under the low branches of the 
trees and as he neared the other side of the meadow he 
saw that he should come out in the rear of the low, white- 
painted dwelling, near the barns. Cows were grouped 
together near a wide gate and King saw the flutter of 
bright gingham among them and the doors of the nearest 
barn stood open. 

Keeping to the trees as long as he could he edged along 
the fence till he came to the gate, just as a freckle-faced 
girl in a pink cotton gown rose from beside a patiently 
standing cow with a pail of foamy milk in her hand. 

His appearance, the very clothes he wore and the neces¬ 
sity for offering a quick explanation faded from King’s 
mind as his eager eyes fell upon the creamy liquid, and 
his parched throat seemed to contract as though it would 
choke him. 

“Please!” he croaked, stretching out both hands across 
the gate. “Milk! A drink! Please!” 

The girl stared at him with round eyes starting from 


LIBERATION 


270 

her head and the ruddy color paling beneath her freckles. 
Then she dropped the pail and shrieked. 

“Pa! Pa! The convict!” 

King stared back at her dazedly for an instant, but an 
answering shout came from the barn and a lanky, blue- 
shirted figure appeared with something long and slender 
grasped in his hands. 

Then, galvanized into sudden activity, King turned 
and ran for the line of trees, but before he reached them 
a loud report sounded in his ears and something like a 
stone struck him violently in the spine, so violently that 
he reeled and staggered on in a world that had suddenly 
turned to night again. He was conscious only of sur¬ 
prise, and then a rending, twisting agony that seared him 
through and through. In unspeakable torture he sank to 
the ground, and lay writhing there until oblivion took him 
into her gentle, soothing arms. . . . 

The inert form in its filthy, ill-fitting, blood-stained 
garments was carried into a shed on the farm and later 
men from the prison came. 

“Great guns, this ain’t Lorrin!” one of them exclaimed. 
“He’s got on Lorrin’s clothes, though! How’d he get 
’em, and who’s the guy, anyway?” 

But the thing which had been Wesley King did not 
hear and could not answer. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


FREE AT LAST 

I T was very pleasant out in the garden, though the 
roses had gone and in their stead dahlias and asters 
were beginning to bud. There was a fragrant odor 
of ripened grain in the warm, still air, and from the roll¬ 
ing country back of the glen the whirring of harvesting 
machines came like the sleepy drone of surfeited bees to 
the girl lying in the couch-hammock under the laden apple 
tree. 

She was more slender, more pale, than the girl of three 
months before, with an ethereal transparency of the deli¬ 
cate, blue-veined skin and liquid hazel eyes which seemed 
larger than ever because of the faint shadows about them. 
Yet they shone with a very tender light, and a little smile 
hovered about her lips as she glanced toward the pergola 
where her mother’s mistily gray head and Mrs. Lorrin’s 
snowy one were bent together over some old-fashioned 
chenille work. 

God was in His Heaven and all was right with the 
world after all, Mary Greenough mused to herself. She 
was Mary Greenough again, for a quietly instituted legal 
process engineered by her father and uncle restoring to 
her the name she had relinquished had been consummated 
only the day before. That cyclonic week in June was 
as if it had never been save for the scars of memory it 
had left and the great and lasting good which had come 
of it. 


271 


LIBERATION 


272 

Yet there were many things which Mary did not un¬ 
derstand and no one had enlightened her. Even Susan’s 
lips closed like a trap when she was questioned, her 
mother was reduced to tears at the mere mention of the 
subject and her father told her not to think of it. Not 
think of it! Couldn’t they understand that she must 
think of it, that it must be ever in her thoughts while she 
was kept so in the dark ? 

Her mind went back to that rainy Sunday morning 
when Susan found her insensible at her window and put 
her to bed with a loyally fictitious tale to the household of 
a bad cold. When she awakened late in the afternoon 
the old woman sat grimly watchful by her side and gave 
her strange news; that the studio was empty, and the 
escaped convict, who was not the same convict at all, had 
been shot dead at a farm back in the country. 

She had been ill then for many days and must have 
babbled all the events of that week in her delirium, for 
when she recovered consciousness she found only forgive¬ 
ness, and understanding, and complete sympathy, sur¬ 
rounding her. More than that, for her stern father 
seemed to regard her with a certain pride and admiration 
not unmixed with unflattering astonishment at her valiant 
defense of the fugitive, and stranger than anything else, 
Mrs. Lorrin had become a warm friend of the house¬ 
hold! 

Where was George Lorrin? She had not seen him 
and no message had come even during these last weeks of 
her convalescence. She knew that he had been pardoned, 
the only reparation which inadequate legislation made 
possible, that he had been publicly exonerated and hailed 
by the press as a martyr, but for all mention of him at 


FREE AT LAST 


273 

home, even by his mother, he might have dropped off the 
face of the earth. 

She was too proud to speak of him or ask for news. 
After all, she had done little for him. Susan had been 
mainly instrumental in giving him shelter and comfort in 
the studio and for the rest, the whole chain of evidence 
had been gathered there, link by link. Perhaps she had 
mistaken the fervor of that impetuous note of farewell 
which he had left behind, perhaps he had regretted it 
and that was why he returned so opportunely a few hours 
later. There must be some other girl, after all! Had she 
babbled also in her delirium of the secret of her own 
heart? Was that why they never spoke of him, in pity 
for her? 

Mary’s thin cheeks burned hotly at the very thought 
and she straightened on her pillows. She would show 
them! None of her friends, thanks to her uncle’s in¬ 
fluence with the press, knew that for a brief space she had 
borne another name than that of her birth, and she would 
get well fast and go about again as gayly as any of the 
country club set! She would- 

What in the world did Susan want now ? It was only 
an hour since she had pestered Mary into taking her broth 
and not nearly time for that detestable tonic! 

But Susan bore no cup nor bottle. She had emerged 
from the back door with her gray-streaked, sandy knob 
of hair canted to one side of her head and her white apron 
had been changed for a black silk one, sure sign of 
some social activity. She went straight down the path 
to the pergola and Mary, inferring that some neighbors 
had called, watched idly. Then her interest quickened, 
for with an air of suppressed excitement, quite foreign 



274 


LIBERATION 


to those two gentle souls, Mrs. Greenough and Mrs. 
Lorrin gathered up their chenille work and departed for 
the house in undignified haste without so much as a glance 
toward her. 

“Susan?” Mary called. “What is it? Who is here?” 

The elderly woman halted in the path and then came 
reluctantly forward. 

“ ’Tis just somebody from the city to see your father, 
Miss Mary,” she replied, adding: “How you can get your¬ 
self so mussed up in that hammick is more than I know! 
Look at the hair of you, straying every way, and wan 
slipper half off! Be the sight of you anny wan would 
think you’d been dragged up!” 

She was busy with the recalcitrant hair and the loos¬ 
ened slipper as she spoke, but her sharp tones were 
tremulous and her mistress demanded: 

“Who has come ? Is it some one I’ve got to see ?” 

“How should I know!” Susan retorted crossly. “He 
give me no name. It could be a lawyer, maybe, about that 
name business, and there’s no call for you to look like a 
ward patient!—There! I’ll be bringing you your tonic 
soon.” 

She departed and Mary lay back with a strange feel¬ 
ing of disappointment. She hadn’t expected any one, 
of course, but every time a guest came her heart fluttered 
and then was depressed. She closed her eyes dreamily. 
Nerves, of course. She couldn’t get well in a day, especi¬ 
ally when it didn’t seem much worth while. . . . 

“Mary!” Was that voice an echo of her own thought 
or realf She opened her eyes and gave a little gasp. 

“George!” 

Neither was aware that for the first time they had used 
the more familiar name, but in another moment he was 


FREE AT LAST 


275 

sitting on the camp stool beside her, holding both her slim 
little hands which he had somehow forgotten to relinquish, 
and she was gazing with starved eyes at this sun-browned, 
erect, strong looking man, who yet had the eyes, and the 
chiseled features and magnetic voice of George Lorrin. 

“I’ve been away. I couldn’t come before 1” he was 
speaking hurriedly, almost confusedly. “Mother has 

kept me posted, though, and every hour, every minute- 

Oh, Mary, you might have died!” 

“I didn’t, you see.” She smiled at him. “Where have 
you been? You look wonderfully well and happy!” 

She tried to keep her tones friendly and congratulatory, 
but a wistful note crept into them and he flushed. 

“I am, Mary. I’ve been out West, starting a ranch 
and learning the cattle business from a new, scientific 
angle and it’s great! Your father and uncle and Mr. 
Wharton were good enough to make me splendid offers 
here, but I’ve had enough of cities and—walls. How 
soon are you going to stop pretending to be an invalid?” 

“I’m not!” Mary retorted with spirit. “Not pre¬ 
tending, I mean! I’m perfectly well, it’s just Susan fuss¬ 
ing over me, and nobody telling me anything! It worries 
me and I have a right to know!” 

“To know what?” His face had become suddenly 
grave. 

“Would it make you feel bad if I asked you?” Her 
voice lowered. “I don’t want to make you think of— 
of all the unhappiness, but I can’t forget till things are 
explained.” 

“You mean about—Wesley King?” he asked slowly. 

She nodded. 

“Yes. You see, that night—I saw him from my win¬ 
dow climbing the hillside in that uniform and I couldn’t 


LIBERATION 


276 

be sure- Won’t you tell me how you first came to 

suspect him? It won’t hurt me to go all over it again, 
it will help to lay a—a ghost. I wonder if you under¬ 
stand ?” 

“I think I do.” His clasp loosened about her hands 
and she drew them gently back. “You see, when you 
first mentioned what an odd coincidence it was that he 
and I had both been associated with Mr. Wharton, I 
thought it was more odd still that he hadn’t spoken of 
it, and I remembered his manner had been different to¬ 
ward me from the moment he saw me sign my name— 
you know where. When he came to me in the studio on 
that Thursday evening and you left us alone together, it 
struck me that he questioned me more from some private 
viewpoint of his own than from an effort at investigating 
the case from mine. You know I was always convinced 
that the guilty man was connected with the office and 
when I asked him about the staff it seemed strange that 
he mentioned every member of it except Richard Hill, 
who had by far the outstanding personality there. When 
I persisted he recalled him suddenly, but vaguely— 
couldn’t remember his last name and yet a moment later 
spoke of him inadvertently by his first one. It was obvi¬ 
ous that he was reluctant to talk of him at all and I 
wondered what connection there could be between the two; 
wondered, and began to suspect the truth! 

“I thought of Hill’s characteristics as they’d been re¬ 
vealed to me by rumor and my own casual interviews with 
him. He was weak, dissipated, extravagant, irresponsible 
—what an admirable tool he would have made in the 
hands of a man more clever and unscrupulous than he! 
I shrank from the suspicion that had come to me because 
of you, Mary, but I felt that I must know the truth! 



FREE AT LAST 


277 


“I sent my mother to Hill and when she returned and 
told me that after her interview with him he had dis¬ 
appeared, I was sure. That afternoon I begged you to 
drop the case, but I was afraid that you wouldn’t, and 
so I went away. I didn’t go far, though, I—I wanted 
just to see you again, and so it happened that I saw King 
with you when you entered the studio and left it. Then 
you returned to it alone and Hill came, then King again. 

“Hill dived through the window and I followed and 
collared him, and made him tell me the whole truth. 
Afterward I went back to the studio in time to see you 
reel back from King’s blow. There isn’t much more to 
tell; King wrote and signed a confession and then put 
on the clothes I had worn and—went away.” 

There was a brief silence and then Mary said musingly: 

“It was better for him, perhaps. I have often won¬ 
dered what became of Hill. His wife and baby dis¬ 
appeared too, a month later, and the authorities haven’t 
seemed able to find a trace of them.” 

“They never will.” Lorrin spoke with an air of 
conviction and he was smiling. “I’ve got a nice young 
fellow out on my ranch, riding range for me in a flivver— 
the modern cowboy, you know. He looks a lot like 
Richard Hill and he’s got a young wife who keeps house 
for me and a baby whose first tooth the whole outfit are 
laying bets on, but his name is Richard Smith.” 

“You could—forgive!” Mary’s eyes grew misty. 

“Weakness and fear, yes, but not strength and 
deliberate wrong. Besides,” he smiled once more, “I 
don’t believe much in our prison system, you know, as a 
means of reformation; God’s air, a fresh start, a chance 
to prove worthy, a differentiation between the single 
offender—the moral defective by environment—and the 


LIBERATION 


278 

habitual criminal, would be more effective, I think.—It 
took me two years to form this opinion, but for that 
alone those years weren’t wasted!—I didn’t come here to 
talk social altruism, though! Do you know why I didn’t 
come before?” 

Mary shook her head. 

“You were too busy?” she faltered. 

“No! I wanted to see—Mary Greenough.” His tone 
was grave, almost reverent and a faint touch of color 
swept into Mary’s cheeks. 

“Oh!” she remarked in a very small voice, then added 
hurriedly, “I was thinking just before you came of how 
wonderfully right everything was with the world! After 
all your suffering you’re exonerated! The whole world 
knows you are innocent! That’s all that counts, now!” 

“And you too, Mary!” His eyes sought hers and 
found them. “If the world knew it would have called 
you a widow, but that empty marriage is as though it had 
never taken place! We are both free at last!” 


THE END 





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